Book "my real name elisabeth": This article explores the topic in depth.
Consequently,
Book "my real name elisabeth":
Joel SAGET / AFP
Adèle Yon, here in March 2025, in Paris.
Literature – The Grand Prix of readers of ELLEthe literary prize of NEW OBSthat of the Marseille bar. In addition, or the best test according to France Télévisions… Since its publication by editions of the subsoil last February, the novel by Adèle Yon My real name is Élisabeth Wins everything on its way, to the point of being a card this summer.
“It’s phenomenal. Similarly, More than 85,000 copies have been sold. However, Not to mention that a dozen translations have already been signed ”. Nevertheless, ranges his publisher Adrien Bosc in the columns of Figaroaccording to which the text brings together both book “my real name elisabeth” the general public and the big readers with a book ” which is not one, but ten at a time ».
Straddling between self-fiction, essay and feminist advocacy, its history is an investigation, that of its author itself. Similarly, It all starts at 25 in full toxic relationship, when Adèle Yon fears to go crazy. Similarly, A few years later, the case was racing. Moreover, She discovers an identity photo in the affairs of a great-uncle, which has just committed suicide.
The story of Betsy – Book "my real name elisabeth"
Above. For example, an old lady: she has not only the extinguished face, but also two marks on the temples, the signs of a lobotomy. For example, This woman is her great-grandmother Elisabeth. Meanwhile, a grandmother whose first name if he disappeared from the discussions, however, transmitted from generation to generation in the family. However, It was said to book “my real name elisabeth” be schizophrenic.
Adèle Yon wonders. Consequently, Could this be hereditary, as the other women around him also envisaged? Similarly, The young researcher in cinematographic studies is, digs up and reconstructs the past, the truth about Elisabeth.
The one nicknamed Betsy set fire at the age of 23 at the castle where his wedding was to take place. Therefore, in 1940. Therefore, Finally. the marriage was held as planned, and the young woman married André, an authoritarian polytechnician with whom she will have six children. She, who wished any, lives badly, very badly each birth.
At a time when the postpartum word of depression was ignored, psychiatry considers it as sick. In 1950. at the instigation of her husband, she underwent a lobotomy, a surgery then in vogue which consists in sectioning a portion of the brain. Long interned, Betsy comes out 17 years later. book “my real name elisabeth” Poorly received in her family, she died in 1990, without her husband admitted to her to live with another woman.
Unanimous literary critics
Success in bookstores. where the book is still among the best sales, all kinds combined, almost six months after its release, My real name is Élisabeth conquered the criticism. Telerama awarded him four “t”, and speaks of a “ meticulous, supported, obstinate investigation ». Augustin Trapenard, of a ” prodigious, insane and stunning book ».
« Hybrid. powerful “, according to The worlds of books, The first novelist of the 31 year old is ” really revolutionary “Said France Inter. If Libération believes that he is going ” stay in memory ». Jérôme Garcin, ex-leader of Mask and penwritten in Provence rarely experienced ” such shock, such vertigo, such emotion ».
At the heart of praise? The incredible material made of correspondence. emails and psychiatric reports that Adeèle Yon brought together for the purposes of what was initially a thesis that allowed him to validate his doctorate last fall. But also, his questioning of the existence of a pseudo-heredity of “madness” among women.
« At the starttells her author in The big bookstore. There is really an intimate and personal emergency to understand Elisabeth’s fate to understand the situation in which I find book “my real name elisabeth” myself. But fairly quickly. I realized that all the women in my family at an age that was mine at the start of my investigation went through a similar period. »
The ” rage folle »D’Adele a
The next step. she decides to approach this fear of family curse with women around her, and quickly understands that her case is not isolated. The phenomenon affects many families. For her. it is obvious: ” It was necessary to tell this story more broadly so that all these women who fear becoming crazy can confront that these stories that we tell ourselves really hide. »»
The sources on lobotomies are incomplete. If they are unanimously condemned by the medical profession today. these surgical operations typical of the 1930s to 1950s in Europe and North America were mainly suffered by women to reduce their capacities and isolate them socially, according to Adèle Yon’s research.
His work was born from a ” rage folle The one in which she found herself by. discovering the fate of Betsy. “” A rage which herself could not benefit since the effect of lobotomy is to prevent the patient from feeling all the negative feelings associated with mental illness “Explains the author. always at the microphone of The big bookstore. Elisabeth’s great-granddaughter has not only inherited book “my real name elisabeth” her anger, she releases her.
Further reading: Success for the book fair and its twenty exhibitors – New children’s books at the Huy library, thanks to the Fifty-One – edition relocated around the potato – These two colleagues resign to launch their business in Le Mans – Innocenzo Cipolletta renewed at the head of Italian publishers, in a difficult market context.