Constance Debré

Join us for a special program featuring novelist Constance Debré, in conjunction with Jordan Strafer’s exhibition, DECADENCE. A lawyer and a writer, Debré is one of France’s most exciting literary voices, known for her radically truthful style. Her first novel, Playboy, published in France in 2018 and newly available in English, tracks the narrator’s decision to abandon her bourgeois married life to become a lesbian and a writer. Debré’s follow-up, Love Me Tender, further explores the consequences as the narrator navigates a brutal custody battle for her son and reframes what it means to be a mother. In 2023, Debré also contributed an essay to a catalogue about Jordan Strafer’s work, published by Secession in Vienna. Visiting Chicago for the occasion, Debré will talk about Strafer’s films in relation to her own work and then join Strafer in conversation. Live captioning will be available at this event.

This program is presented with additional support from the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago and the France Chicago Center.