Patrick Autréaux

{{Short description|French writer and scholar}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Patrick Autréaux

| image = European Voices- A Reading & Conversation with Patrick Autreaux - 49645571572 (cropped).jpg

| caption = Patrick Autréaux (2020)

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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1968|3|14|df=y}}

| birth_place = Melun, France

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| occupation = Novelist

| genre = Literary fiction

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}}

Patrick Autréaux is a French writer who has held appointments as a writer-in-residence at Boston University (2018–2019, and 2024){{cite web|title=Patrick Autréaux|url=https://www.bu.edu/rs/profile/patrick-fabry-autreaux/|author=Boston University|website=Boston University|access-date=10 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180311081241/https://www.bu.edu/rs/profile/patrick-fabry-autreaux/|archive-date=11 March 2018|url-status=dead}} and a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2018).{{cite web|title=Patrick Autréaux|url=https://mitgsl.mit.edu/faculty-staff-detail/patrick-autreaux|author=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|website=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|access-date=10 March 2018}}{{Dead link|date=May 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} After training in medicine and anthropology, he practiced as an emergency-room psychiatrist in Paris and started writing poetry and contemporary art reviews before publishing fiction. He is affiliated with [https://www.mitfrench.com/people MIT French +].

An early experience with cancer led him to write three books on the topic of illness: Dans la vallée des larmes, Soigner et Se survivre. Dans la vallée des larmes relates the experience of a thirty-five year old doctor coming to terms with a lymphoma whose diagnosis had been suddenly announced.{{cite web|title="Dans la vallée des larmes", de Patrick Autréaux : rescapé du naufrage|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2009/07/02/dans-la-vallee-des-larmes-de-patrick-autreaux_1214242_3260.html|author=René de Ceccatty|website=Le Monde|date=2 July 2009|access-date=5 September 2016}} Soigner is about a patient in remission who resumes his previous role of doctor and cares for his dying grandfather.{{cite news|title=Soigner|url=http://www.la-croix.com/Archives/2010-09-28/Soigner-_NP_-2010-09-28-386333|author=Dominque Lecourt|website=La Croix|date=28 September 2010|access-date=5 September 2016}} Se survivre consists of seven meditations on the state of illness.{{cite web|title=Se survivre|url=http://www.telerama.fr/livres/se-survivre,98977.php|author=Nathalie Crom|website=Télérama|date=17 June 2013|access-date=5 September 2016}}

Since these early writings, his work has developed in new directions: a hidden family drama that unravels during the expulsion of an undocumented person in France (Les Irréguliers), the agitation of a tree shaken by a storm as a metaphor for the loss of a loved one (Le grand vivant) and a narrative retracing Autréaux's personal journey between medicine and literature (La Voix écrite).{{cite web|title=Strangeness From Within: Toward a Novel|url=http://www.wbur.org/worldofideas/2018/06/10/autreaux|website=WBUR|date=10 June 2018}}

Les Irréguliers was born out of the experience the author had when seeking news of a detained undocumented friend. Le grand vivant labels itself a “standing poem” which brings to life the dying moments of a beloved grandfather, who until his last breath, had sheltered the presence of his deceased wife and was in the eyes of his grandson, a protective figure.” Le grand vivant was performed in 2015 the French Avignon theater festival. Lastly, La Voix écrite is an autobiographical tale on the long road to writing. This tale speak particularly of the relationship between the author and his former editor “Max” behind whom we decipher “the protective figure of J.-B. Pontalis”, psychoanalyst and editor at Gallimard.{{cite news |last=Joubert |first=Sophie |date=2017-03-17 |title=La foi en l'écriture et le gardien du seuil |url=https://www.humanite.fr/recit-la-foi-en-lecriture-et-le-gardien-du-seuil-633443 |language=French |work=L'Humanite |location=Paris |access-date=2018-11-21}}

About his novel Quand la parole attend la nuit (Verdier, 2019, selected for the Prix Femina and Prix Décembre),{{Cite web |title=Le Femina dévoile ses premières sélections 2019 |url=https://www.livreshebdo.fr/article/le-femina-devoile-ses-premieres-selections-2019 |access-date=2019-09-21 |website=Livres Hebdo |language=fr}}{{Cite web |title=La première sélection du prix Décembre 2019 |url=https://www.livreshebdo.fr/article/la-premiere-selection-du-prix-decembre-2019 |access-date=2019-09-21 |website=Livres Hebdo |language=fr}} the French literary journal AOC noted, “The learning in question here is much broader than that of becoming a practitioner. The art of medicine for Patrick Autréaux is the art of being in the world or, to use one of his terms, of being in the ‘cosmos'.’”{{Cite web |last=Kantcheff |first=Christophe |date=2019-09-08 |title=Une éducation de carabin – à propos de Quand la parole attend la nuit de Patrick Autréaux - AOC media |url=https://aoc.media/critique/2019/09/09/une-education-de-carabin-a-propos-de-quand-la-parole-attend-la-nuit-de-patrick-autreaux/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=AOC media - Analyse Opinion Critique |language=fr-FR}} His book Pussyboy (Verdier, 2021) is "a strong, disturbing, and daring story without ever being raw, radical in everything it reveals",{{Cite web |last=Lecaplain |first=Guillaume |title=L'extase selon Patrick Autréaux |url=https://www.liberation.fr/culture/livres/lextase-selon-patrick-autreaux-20210306_HE6Q4D42ZNB7HB35MYURRCGEG4/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=Libération |language=fr}} and according to Diacritik "one of the most important books in recent years"{{Cite web |last=Faerber |first=Johan |date=2023-01-09 |title=Patrick Autréaux : " On écrit souvent là où ça cloche " (La Sainte de la famille) |url=https://diacritik.com/2023/01/09/patrick-autreaux-on-ecrit-souvent-la-ou-ca-cloche-la-sainte-de-la-famille/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=DIACRITIK |language=fr-FR}} that also signals a new inflection in his work.

Patrick Autréaux announced in 2023 the opening of a cycle, titled Constat,{{Cite web |last=Napoli |first=Gabrielle |date=2023-02-07 |title=La sainte de la famille, de Patrick Autréaux : Thérèse et moi |url=https://www.en-attendant-nadeau.fr/2023/02/08/therese-moi-autreaux/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=En attendant Nadeau |language=fr-FR}}{{Cite web |last=Faerber |first=Johan |date=2023-01-09 |title=Patrick Autréaux : " On écrit souvent là où ça cloche " (La Sainte de la famille) |url=https://diacritik.com/2023/01/09/patrick-autreaux-on-ecrit-souvent-la-ou-ca-cloche-la-sainte-de-la-famille/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=DIACRITIK |language=fr-FR}} with the release of The Saint of the Family. Liberation described it as “a text on faith written by an atheist and whose engine is ‘care’ in the strong sense of the term: a concern, a generous responsibility as much as a therapeutic intervention.”{{Cite web |last=Loret |first=Eric |title=Patrick Autréaux, Lisieux dans les yeux |url=https://www.liberation.fr/culture/livres/patrick-autreaux-lisieux-dans-les-yeux-20230129_Y4TCJ3IPIBEMLEKOTISEAPPUYI/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=Libération |language=fr}} The French literary journal Zone Critique{{Cite web |last=Perez |first=Rodolphe |date=2023-01-12 |title=Patrick Autréaux : Le fil de Thérèse ou le témoin advenu |url=https://zone-critique.com/2023/01/12/patrick-autreaux-le-fil-de-therese-ou-le-temoin-advenu/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=ZONE CRITIQUE |language=en}} added, “The saint of the family is none other than Thérèse de Lisieux, in short Sainte Thérèse... Here, she almost makes herself an imaginary friend of the child in the story... No family inquiry, no hidden motives, or aggressive vindictiveness, but the observation of a reality that was and its progressive surfacing under the watchful reader’s eyes. If the text deploys an attempt to unmask, it is not to reveal any mystery therefore, but to consider the other side of the coin, the flip side of history.” AOC further calls it “a journey along which illusions fall away, the inessential fades away and the meaning of things becomes clearer.”{{Cite web |last=Kantcheff |first=Christophe |date=2023-02-13 |title=Main dans la main – sur La Sainte de la famille de Patrick Autréaux - AOC media |url=https://aoc.media/critique/2023/02/13/main-dans-la-main-sur-la-sainte-de-la-famille-de-patrick-autreaux/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=AOC media - Analyse Opinion Critique |language=fr-FR}}

The book titled L’Époux (meaning, the spouse) continues the cycle inaugurated by The Saint of the Family. It opens on a wedding but like all of Autréaux's works, "each event is the start of a journey."{{Cite web |last=Lecaplain |first=Guillaume |title=«L'Epoux» de Patrick Autréaux, sa déclaration |url=https://www.liberation.fr/culture/livres/lepoux-de-patrick-autreaux-sa-declaration-20250321_VVLPCLCGIBARRHNIN7H7MH2LZI/ |access-date=2025-05-05 |website=Libération |language=fr}} This journey allows Autréaux to explore two key tensions: first, "the jewish parents of his spouse who have a hard time accepting their son's homosexuality, and even more so with their future son-in-laws," and, second, "catholicism's (and all other religion's) rejection of homosexulaity."{{Cite web |last=KANTCHEFF |first=Christophe |date=2025-04-16 |title="L'Époux", la peau délivre |url=https://www.politis.fr/articles/2025/04/lepoux-la-peau-delivre/ |access-date=2025-05-05 |website=POLITIS |language=fr-FR}}

Patrick Autréaux's work has also been published in numerous journals (such as Esprit, Europe, NRF, Socrates on the beach,{{Cite web |title=Patrick Autréaux's "A School of Life" |url=https://socratesonthebeach.com/patrick-autreaux |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=Socrates on the Beach |language=en-US}} MuseMedusa,{{Cite web |title=Le gué – MuseMedusa |url=https://musemedusa.com/dossier-10/le-gue/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=musemedusa.com}} Lettres Françaises, Décapage, Mettray, Zone Critique, etc.). His poetry has appeared, amongst other outlets, in Phréatique, Poésie 91, Van (Ho Chi Minh City), MuseMedusa (Canada), Sarrazine, Noto, REVU, Margelles, and Catastrophes.{{Cite web |date=2022-09-08 |title=Cinq poèmes |url=https://revuecatastrophes.wordpress.com/2022/09/08/cinq-poemes-3/ |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=Catastrophes |language=fr-FR}}

In 2022, he was a Fellow at [https://maisondoramaar.org/ The Dora Maar House] (Nancy B. Negley Artists Residency Program);{{cite web |title=Directory of fellows |url=https://maisondoramaar.org/fellows/patrick-autreaux/ |access-date=7 September 2023 |website=The Dora Maar Cultural Center |publisher=Fondation Nancy Brown Negley}} and in 2023, writer-in-residence at the Internationale House of Literature in Brussels ([https://www.passaporta.be/en/about Passa Porta]).

Political positions :

In 2016, Autréaux published with the Diderot Institute a polemical take on the terrorist attack, “Je suis Charlie, un an après”, written for a round table at Harvard University and Boston University.{{cite web|title=Violence, Literature, and Politics|url=https://www.bu.edu/rs/2015/03/25/violence-litterature-et-politique-with-writer-and-psychiatrist-patrick-autreaux/|website=Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies|date=15 April 2015}}{{cite web|title=Patrick Autréaux : " Rendre compte de la violence et des non-dits "|url=https://www.politis.fr/articles/2016/02/patrick-autreaux-rendre-compte-de-la-violence-et-des-non-dits-34143/|work=Politis.fr|date=17 February 2016|access-date=2018-10-15}} And in 2019, Politis published an open letter to his representative LREM about the Yellow Vest Protests: "Congresswoman, why I don't believe you"{{Cite web |date=2019-01-23 |title=Madame la députée En marche, pourquoi je ne vous crois pas… |url=https://www.politis.fr/articles/2019/01/madame-la-deputee-en-marche-pourquoi-je-ne-vous-crois-pas-39885/ |access-date=2023-09-19 |website=POLITIS |language=fr-FR}}