Homelessness, Disability and Education in Delphine de Vigan’s Coming-of-Age Narrative No et moi

Abstract

Delphine de Vigan’s No et moi is a coming-of-age narrative which textually re-enacts the marginalization of the homeless No as her voice is appropriated into the first-person narrative of the precocious middle-class thirteen-year-old Lou, who persuades her parents to take No into their home. I argue that the marginalization of issues about social exclusion is systematically reinforced by the school system. Although No et moi features on literature syllabuses for both the baccalauréat in France and A Level in the UK, the text itself highlights a lack of pupil engagement with the school programme and challenges the privileging of abstract knowledge over self-development and engagement with contemporary social issues. I argue that the text makes a contribution to Disability Studies and is representative of Alexandre Gefen’s therapeutic turn in twenty-first-century French literature, whereby empathy and care for others can help us overcome our own disabilities and challenges, in this case what presents as autism.