Jacques Vingtras

Jules Vallès, an anarchist and bohemian, dedicated his novel "The Child" to all those who died of boredom at school or cried at home, who were tyrannized by their teachers or beaten by their parents during childhood. It tells the largely autobiographical story of a little boy who is constantly made a scapegoat and emotionally and physically abused by his peasant grandmother and teacher father. His greatest concern, however, is to improve the family's social status. Despite the depicted social abysses and human malice, "The Child" is full of irony and humor, and is considered by many to be one of the wittiest books in French literature, feeling so modern that it seems to have been written from the heart of the present.