Virginie Despentes | |
|---|---|
 Despentes in March 2012 | |
| Born | (1969-06-13)13 June 1969 (age 55) Nancy, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, filmmaker |
| Language | French |
| Years active | 1993– |
| Website | |
| www | |
| French andFrancophone literature |
|---|
| by category |
| History |
| Movements |
| Writers |
| Countries and regions |
| Portals |
Virginie Despentes (French:[viʁ.ʒi.nide.pɑ̃t]; born 13 June 1969) is a French writer, novelist, and filmmaker. She is known for her work exploring gender,[1] sexuality,[1] and people who live in poverty or other marginalised conditions.[2]
Despentes' work is an inventory of youthmarginalization; it pertains to thesexual revolution lived byGeneration X and to the acclimation ofpornography in public spaces through new communication techniques. With a transgressive exploration of obscenity's limits,[3] as a novelist or a film-maker she proposes social critique and an antidote to the new moral order.[4] Her characters deal with misery and injustice, self-violence such as drug addiction, or violence towards others such as rape or terrorism, violence she has also suffered from. She is one of the most popular French authors from this era.[1][2] Her bookKing Kong Theory is sometimes taught ingender studies and "often passed down to millennial women as a recommendation from a cool, not-that-much-older mentor."[2] For years after the release of her 1993 novelRape Me, she was depicted by French literary institutions as an outsider or "enfant terrible", and drew criticism from both the political left and right. Later works such asApocalypse Bébé (2010) and theVernon Subutex trilogy (2015–17) received many positive reviews.[5]
Virginie Despentes was born as Virginie Daget[6] in 1969.[7] She grew up inNancy, France, in aworking-class family. Her parents were postal workers.[8] At age 15, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital against her will by her parents.[9] She later noted, "I’m sure now that I would never have been locked up if I had been born a boy. The antics that caused me to end up in a psych ward were not that feral."[9]
When she was age 17, Despentes left her home and abandoned her schooling.[7] As a teenager, she was ahitchhiker and followed rock bands.[10] While hitchhiking with a friend at age 17, Despentes was threatened by three young men with a rifle and then gang-raped.[8][11] She had a switchblade in her pocket, but she was too scared to use it.[11]
Despentes settled in Lyon,[12] where she worked as a maid, a prostitute in "massage parlors" and peep shows, a sales clerk in a record store, a freelance rock journalist, and a pornographic film critic.[13]
In 1994, her first bookBaise-moi was published. The book focuses on two female sex workers who go on a killing spree[1] after one of them is gang-raped.[2] For the book, she had taken the pen name Despentes, which was inspired byLa Croix-Rousse, her old neighbourhood in Lyon. The neighbourhood was hilly; "pente" is French for hill.[8] (Des pentes means 'from the hills') She had chosen the pen name so that her family could have some distance from the book.[8]
Despentes moved to Paris. In 2000, she directed the filmBaise-moi, an adaptation of her own novel, co-directed with former pornographic actressCoralie Trinh Thi. It starredKaren Lancaume andRaffaëla Anderson.Baise-moi is a contemporary example of arape and revenge film, anexploitation films genre.[14] After the release of the 1993 novel and the film adaptation, she became highly controversial.
When discussing her life and work, Despentes explained,
I became a prostitute and walked the streets in low-cut tops and high-heeled shoes owing no one an explanation, and I kept and spent every penny I earned. I hitchhiked, I was raped, I hitchhiked again. I wrote a first novel and published it under my own, clearly female first name, not imagining for a second that when it came out I’d be continually lectured to about all the boundaries that should never be crossed...I wanted to live like a man, so I lived like a man.[11]
Her novelLes Jolies Choses was adapted forthe screen in 2001 byGilles Paquet-Brenner, withMarion Cotillard andStomy Bugsy in the lead roles. The film was awarded theMichel d'Ornano prize at the 2001Deauville American Film Festival.
From 2004 to 2005, she wrote a blog that documented her daily life. Around this time she began identifying as a lesbian and started to date Spanish philosopherPaul B. Preciado before he transitioned to male.[2]
In 2005, she wrote three songs for the albumVa Chercher la Police for the groupA.S. Dragon.
In 2006, she published the non-fiction workKing Kong Theory. It recounts her experiences in the French sex industry as well as the infamy and praise she experienced for writingBaise-Moi.
In 2009 she directed the documentaryMutantes (Féminisme Porno Punk), broadcast on TV Pink.
In 2010, her novelApocalypse bébé was awarded the Renaudot prize.
Bye Bye Blondie was adapted for film withBéatrice Dalle andEmmanuelle Béart.[15] Cecilia Backes and Salima Boutebal produced a stage adaptation ofKing Kong Theory during the "Outside"Festival d'Avignon.[16]
In 2011, her commentary onDominique Strauss-Kahn appeared inThe Guardian.[17]
The English translation of her novelVernon Subutex 1 was shortlisted for the 2018Man Booker International Prize.[18]
On 18 August 2023, she was a guest celebrity judge in the episode of theSeason 2 titledShowtime! of the French language reality television seriesDrag Race France broadcast onFrance.tv Slash.
In 2018,Lauren Elkin discussed her early dislike of Despentes and other writers such asKathy Acker, writing aboutRape Me: "There was an anger and a sarcasm in the writing that I turned away from. I felt too much empathy for [Séverine] to mock her. Despentes seemed content to judge Séverine superficially, and it felt to me like a betrayal of the novelist’s task to render some human truth on the page. [...] The book reads as if Despentes had a personal score to settle with some phantom woman offstage. [...] It felt to me like Acker and Despentes were jutting out their chins trying to prove they could produce work that was as ugly and aggressive as a man’s".[1] She noted that critics also "derided Despentes for lacking a 'literary style'". Elkin highly praised the later Despentes booksPretty Things,King Kong Theory, andVernon Subutex, saying thatPretty Things "wickedly refutes the stereotype of the chic French girl and exposes the sham at the heart of femininity. And it shows our complicity, male and female, individual and corporate, in keeping the sham of femininity alive."Pretty Things was also praised by multiple critics after Emma Ramadan's translation.[19]
Anthony Cummins, reviewingVernon Subutex 3, wrote that "the novel’s real energy, somewhere between contrarian op-ed and off-colour standup, lies in how Despentes stays out of the picture to let the story unfold through the thoughts of its large, 20-plus cast...it’s a dark story of how violence can be turned to entertainment for the sake of profit. It can be exhausting, but it’s also invigorating, and there isn’t really anything else like it right now."[20]
Despentes won the 1998 Prix de Flore, the 1999 Prix Saint-Valentin forLes Jolies Choses and the 2010Prix Renaudot forApocalypse Bébé.
She was named a member of theAcadémie Goncourt on 5 January 2016. Despentes resigned from this position on 5 January 2020 in order to dedicate more time to writing.
In 2018, Despentes was shortlisted for theInternational Booker Prize, for Vernon Subutex 1, translated into English byFrank Wynne.
| French Publication | Original French title | English title / translation | English Publication |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Baise-moi | Baise-moi (Fuck Me) | Transl. byBruce Benderson |
| 1996 | Les Chiennes savantes | ||
| 1998 | Les Jolies Choses | Pretty Things | Transl. byEmma Ramadan |
| 2002 | Teen Spirit | ||
| 2002 | Trois étoiles | ||
| 2004 | Bye Bye Blondie | Bye Bye Blondie | Transl. bySiân Reynolds |
| 2006 | King Kong Théorie | King Kong Theory | Transl. byStéphanie Benson |
| 2010 | Apocalypse Bébé | Apocalypse Baby | Transl. bySiân Reynolds |
| 2015 | Vernon Subutex, 1 | Vernon Subutex, 1 | Transl. byFrank Wynne |
| 2015 | Vernon Subutex, 2 | Vernon Subutex, 2 | Transl. byFrank Wynne |
| 2017 | Vernon Subutex, 3 | Vernon Subutex, 3 | Transl. byFrank Wynne |
| 2022 | Cher connard | Dear Dickhead | Transl. byFrank Wynne |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)