A Woman's Battles and Transformations - by Édouard Louis (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A Woman's Battles and Transformations is a portrait of the author's mother by the acclaimed writer of the international bestsellers The End of Eddy and History of Violence.

One day, Édouard Louis finds a photograph of his mother from twenty years ago. A picture of a happy young woman full of hopes and dreams. Growing up, Édouard knew only his mother's sadness, as she found herself trapped in the humdrum life of a housewife, and her struggles against the dominant world of men. What happened in those years since the photo was taken?

Then, at the age of forty-five, his mother frees herself from this oppression. She leaves her husband and her old life behind to start anew in Paris.

A Woman's Battles and Transformations is Édouard Louis's most tender book yet. It reckons with the cruel systems that govern our lives, with politics and power--and with the possibility of escape. It is an exquisite and loving portrait of a mother, and an honoring of her self-discovery and liberation as she chooses to live on her own terms.

Review Quotes

"The writing [in A Woman's Battles and Transformations] is intensely lyrical but the subject rubs up against the political . . . Moving and beautiful."
--David Keymer, Library Journal (starred)

"Ravishing . . . This one-sitting read, slim and complete, dazzles with memories sieved to their finest grains and affirms the extraordinary power of writing."
--Annie Bostrom, Booklist

"While the narrative is pulled from his life, the personal is always political--and Louis tracks his mother's violence and pain as intertwined with capitalism, patriarchy, and systems beyond our control. Translated by his friend and novelist Tash Aw, this is not to be missed."
--Jonny Diamond, Lit Hub (most anticipated)

Praise for The End of Eddy

"Excellent . . . Not just a remarkable ethnography. It is also a mesmerizing story about difference and adolescence, one that is far more realistic than most."
--Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

"Brilliant . . . Freighted with an ambivalence that animates the book and gives it a devastating emotional force. . . At once an act of solidarity and an act of vengeance."
--Garth Greenwell, The New Yorker

Praise for Who Killed My Father

"[Édouard Louis is] a global literary sensation . . . To understand what is happening now in France, or indeed, all over Europe, this is an essential text."
--The Irish Times

"Who Killed My Father is a political document that uses the force of memoir--incisive, confessional personal details--to bolster its argument that Louis's father's life (and by extension, his family) was ruined by politics. Compelling."
--Kevin O'Rourke, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Édouard Louis [is] the vanguard of France's new generation of political writers . . . He has given his people a voice."
--Arjun Neil Alim, Evening Standard

"A brief, poetic telling of the myriad ways societal contempt, homophobia, and poverty can kill a man . . . Deeply personal."
--Martha Anne Toll, NPR

"Literary phenomenon Édouard Louis . . . gives voice to the way the cruel, crude hegemony of masculinity has essentially destroyed his father's life . . . The careful, deliberate narrative reads as if Louis were testifying, or building a case for a jury in real time."
--Lauren Elkin, The Guardian

About the Author

Édouard Louis is the author of The End of Eddy, History of Violence, and Who Killed My Father, and the editor of a book on the social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Freeman's. His books have been translated into thirty languages and have made him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation worldwide.

Tash Aw was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and was brought up in Malaysia. He is the author of the novels We, the Survivors; The Harmony Silk Factory; Map of the Invisible World; and Five Star Billionaire, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize; as well as a memoir, The Face: Strangers on a Pier.