Laure Murat: a free event at the Beaux-Arts de Paris on November 10

How should we reread the classics as sensibilities evolve? The Thinking the Present series invites Laure Murat to explore this question through her essay All Eras Are Disgusting, published by Verdier in 2025. The writer and UCLA professor will be in conversation with Jean-Yves Jouannais, writer and teacher, and Audrey Illouz, head of cultural programming.

The discussion will focus on how literary texts are changed and what motivates those changes. The case of books by Roald Dahl, whose publisher sought to alter certain passages, is among the examples cited by the organizers. It will provide an opportunity to examine the relationships between works, their readers and publishers’ choices.

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Author of Proust, A Family Novel, which won the Prix Médicis for nonfiction in 2023, Laure Murat works on literature and its contemporary uses. This conversation extends those reflections in a discussion of how books travel across eras.

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