As part of Simplement Différents, the month of fights against discrimination initiated by the Occitanie region, in partnership with Rugby Quercy Féminin and the Queer Quercy 46/82 association, the Calligramme bookstore will dedicate its November naked reading to “Ravages » the novel by Violette Leduc. It is this work that the actress Elizabeth Masse chose to read.
Published by Gallimard in 1955 in a first censored version, then finally reissued in its entirety in November 2023, “Ravages” retraces the romantic journey of Thérèse – Violette’s double – and Isabelle within their boarding school. The novelist describes their budding loves but also the devouring passion of the flesh, all in rawness, in what remains an autobiographical novel, because in “Ravages” as in other works by Violette Leduc, her own life shapes her fictions. A novel of initiation and emancipation, this erotic-literary volcano was cut from its initial version of 150 pages, the Gallimard Committee then fearing scandal, even state censorship, which Violette Leduc would then describe as “assassination”.
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