#  Translating at the Edge of Language: Eroticism, Rebellion, and the Algerian War in Pierre Guyotat's Idiocy 

 



    ![guyotat ](/sites/g/files/omnuum8296/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-10/Screenshot%202025-10-20%20at%2011.10.30%E2%80%AFAM.png?itok=cbmBiHvq) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **October 29, 2025** 

 05:15PM - 06:45PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Boylston Hall, Room 237**  



 

 



 

To mark the U.S. release of Pierre Guyotat’s Idiocy, newly translated by Peter Behrman de Sinéty from the New York Review Books, join us for an evening of readings and conversation exploring the legacy of the radical, experimental French writer. Published in French in 2018 and awarded the Prix Médicis, Idiocy is a searing autobiographical account of Guyotat’s formative years, his rebellion against familial and military authority, and his imprisonment during the Algerian War. Blending linguistic experimentation with a meditation on state violence, eroticism, and the possibility of artistic resistance, the memoir is both an indictment of colonial domination and the formal culmination of a literary vision that Edmund White once described as belonging to one of the few geniuses of our day.

*Please contact Selma Laghmara ([selma\_laghmara@fas.harvard.edu](mailto:selma_laghmara@fas.harvard.edu)) with any questions about the event*



 

 

Peter Behrman de Sinéty grew up in Maine and lives in Paris. He was lecteur d’anglais at the École Normale Supérieure, where he has taught since 2011. His translations include Éric Chevillard's QWERTY Invectives and Maël Renouard’s Fragments of an Infinite Memory.



 



      ![Peter](/sites/g/files/omnuum8296/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2025-10/Screenshot%202025-10-20%20at%2011.13.29%E2%80%AFAM.png?h=08f8bb49&itok=xjv1ALFo) 

 

 

  

 



 

 

 

 

 



 

 

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