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Christine Angot and Alexandra Kleeman discuss Impossible Love, hosted by Albertine
April 23, 2022 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
An Impossible Love by Christine Angot describes the inevitable encounter of two young people at a social ball in early 1950s France: Rachel and Pierre, Angot’s mother and father, whose love is unusually acute. Equal parts subtle and suspenseful, Angot the author carves Angot the narrator from this corrosive element, conveying an unmendable rupture, and at the same time offering a portrait of a striking, ineradicable bond between mother and daughter.
Christine Angot is one of the most controversial authors writing today in France. Since the 1999 publication of Incest, Angot has remained at the center of public debate and has continued to push the boundaries of what society allows an author to express. Born in 1958 in Châteauroux, Angot studied law at the University of Reims and began writing at the age of 25. Her literary works have received prizes including the Prix France Culture in 2005 (for Les Désaxés and Une partie du cœur), the Prix Flore in 2006 (for Rendez-vous) and the Prix Sade in 2012 (for Une semaine de vacances), which she refused. In 2015 she won the Prix Décembre for her novel Un Amour impossible. Angot is now also a commentator on the television show On n’est pas couché.
Alexandra Kleeman is the author of the novel Something New Under the Sun, a short story collection entitled Intimations, and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, which was awarded the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2020, she was awarded the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, n+1, and more. Her work has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf, Djerassi, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts.