Juergen: The Ideal Son-in-Law A text by Marie Darrieussecq on Juergen Teller

Marie Darrieussecq studied literature, first in preparatory classe at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand in Paris, then at the École Normale Supérieure on Rue d’Ulm. In 1992, she received her agrégation in Modern Literature, and then she defended a PhD on “the tragic irony of autofiction in Perec, Leiris, Doubrovsky and Guibert” in 1997. Marie Darrieussecq achieved success with her first novel, Pig tales (The New Press, New York, 1997), which sold more than 300,000 copies and was translated into 34 languages. Her writings blend both fiction and autobiography. She tries her hand at different genres—the novel, theater, the essay—which often address the question of motherhood, mourning, or the theme of metamorphosis. Marie Darrieussecq features two heroines, Rose and Solange, friends since childhood, in several of her novels published by P.O.L, Paris, at different moments in their lives: in Clèves (2011), Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes (2013)—which won the Prix Médicis—La Mer à l’envers (2019), and more recently Fabriquer une femme (2024).