Didier Eribon is one of today’s most important voices about class and social justice as well as understanding the mechanism of far-right mobilization. Didier Eribon’s Back to Reims (Retour à Reims) was paid tribute by Le Monde, Libération, L’Express and other newspapers when it was first published in 2009. It has given a significant impression on the debate about the far-right Front Nationals' success within the working-class community. The German translation was published in 2016 and has sold over 100 000 copies. The book has since become an important reference point in the public debate both in Germany and France. The book has also been dramatized on stage in both Germany and Sweden, as well as in a documentary film.
Eribon is also a prominent voice in today’s social debate in his latest book Life, Old age and Death of a Working-Class Woman (2025), (Vie, vieillesse et mort d’une femme du people (2023). Didier Eribon analyses our relationships with the elderly and the experience of getting old and makes old age a starting point for political reflection: How can people mobilize when they no longer have the power of saying “we”? Who is making their voices heard?
In Back to Reims Didier Eribon goes back to his hometown to reflect upon the social shame. In his academic works concerning sexual shame, he has established himself as one of France’s leading queer theoretics. But through the return to Reims, he realizes how little he wanted to acknowledge another type of shame: social shame.
Didier Eribon is a French author, sociologist and philosopher published Life, Old age and Death of a Working-Class Woman in 2025. He became known in 1989 for his highly appreciated biography of Michael Foucault. In the groundbreaking book Back to Reims the author goes back to his hometown to reflect around his working-class background and the social shame.
Moderator is Lotta Vilde Wahl, producer of programs at National Museums of World Culture, used to own the bookstore Hallongrottan böcker & kuriosa in Stockholm and was producer of the literary scene and for the literary scene of Inkonst, Malmö.