The Class

(Paperback, Media tie-in)

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Description

An autobiographical novel examining the efforts of one man to teach the French language to a rowdy classroom of teenagers in the outskirts of Paris. Winner of the Prix France Culture/Telerama Prize, The Class explores issues of race, class, identity and colonial history against the backdrop of a turbulent French society grappling with the controversial social consequences of its immigration policy. The novel's eponymous film version is directed by Laurent Cantet, stars Begaudeau as himself and received the Palme D'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

The Classis a prime document of French postcolonial blues, though its relevance to American urban education could not be any greater if it had been made in the Bronx or Trenton or South Los Angeles. David Denby, The New Yorker

Franois Bgaudeau's award-winning [The Class] . . . trains the reader to look anew at the republican school and study the republican legacy with fresh eyes. Yale Review

Author Bio

FRANOIS BGAUDEAU is the author of two novels: Jouer juste (2003) and Dans la diagonale (2005). In 2005, he published a fictional biography of the Rolling Stones titled Rolling Stones: Un dmocrate Mick Jagger 19601969. A filmcritic for the Cahiers du cinma and the French version of Playboy, he played in the punk band Zabriskie Point before becoming a teacher in France's public school system.