Collapse
Published on 4. June 2026
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-1-78730-503-8 (ISBN)
Description
I often hated my brother, but I have to understand his life.
The unflinching story of Edouard Louis's brother's violent life and death.
'One of the most important, politically vital and morally bracing writers of his generation' GUARDIAN
Edouard's brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, that he will earn his father's love.
But his reality allows none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him - his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others - condemns him.
At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.
Translated by TASH AW
'Bracing, pulverising... burns with white-hot truth' COLIN WALSH
'Spare, raw... Edouard Louis is someone who makes writing matter' NEIL BARTLETT
'Louis has never been tenderer, more sophisticated, or more fully on form' NAOISE DOLAN
'Belongs to that vital group of writers, amongst the likes of Cusk, Rankine and Ernaux, who have revitalised and reinvented their own form' ANDREW McMILLAN
Praise for Edouard Louis
'I feel so lucky to be living and writing at the same time as Edouard Louis' MAGGIE NELSON
'One of the major writers of our time' GARTH GREENWELL
'Louis is a master of the poetics of juxtaposition, elucidating the hostile and the intimate... the vulnerable and the resilient' YIYUN LI
The unflinching story of Edouard Louis's brother's violent life and death.
'One of the most important, politically vital and morally bracing writers of his generation' GUARDIAN
Edouard's brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, that he will earn his father's love.
But his reality allows none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him - his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others - condemns him.
At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.
Translated by TASH AW
'Bracing, pulverising... burns with white-hot truth' COLIN WALSH
'Spare, raw... Edouard Louis is someone who makes writing matter' NEIL BARTLETT
'Louis has never been tenderer, more sophisticated, or more fully on form' NAOISE DOLAN
'Belongs to that vital group of writers, amongst the likes of Cusk, Rankine and Ernaux, who have revitalised and reinvented their own form' ANDREW McMILLAN
Praise for Edouard Louis
'I feel so lucky to be living and writing at the same time as Edouard Louis' MAGGIE NELSON
'One of the major writers of our time' GARTH GREENWELL
'Louis is a master of the poetics of juxtaposition, elucidating the hostile and the intimate... the vulnerable and the resilient' YIYUN LI
Reviews / Votes
What Edouard Louis has to say is so urgent that I buy all his books as soon as they're out in French. I am so glad that English-speakers can now access his latest departure through Tash Aw's new translation. COLLAPSE unites Louis's trademark sociological sharpness with a new and quite terrifying psychological depth, giving us a life at once overdetermined and touched by something darker, more elusive. He has never been tenderer, more sophisticated, or more fully on form. -- Naoise Dolan Edouard Louis surely belongs to that vital group of writers, amongst the likes of Cusk, Rankine and Ernaux, who have revitalised and reinvented their own form in a relentless pursuit of the truth -- Andrew McMillan Spare, raw - and quite unforgettably moving. Edouard Louis is someone who makes writing matter -- Neil Bartlett Full of writing that is both rigorously controlled and profoundly shaken, Collapse is a bracing, pulverising book. It burns with white-hot truth, the sort that illuminates even as it incinerates -- Colin WalshMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 142 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
313 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78730-503-8 (9781787305038)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2026
Vintage Digital
€12.99
Available for download
Persons
Edouard Louis (Author)
Edouard Louis is the author of The End of Eddy, History of Violence, Who Killed My Father, A Woman's Battles and Transformations, Change, Monique Escapes and Collapse, and the editor of a book on the social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, making him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation worldwide.
Tash Aw (Translator)
Tash Aw was born in Taiwan and is the author of five novels, three of which have been longlisted for the Booker Prize including his most recent novel, The South. His work has won the Whitbread First Novel Award, a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and an O. Henry Award, and has been translated into over twenty languages. His translation of Edouard Louis' A Woman's Battles and Transformations was shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize.
Edouard Louis is the author of The End of Eddy, History of Violence, Who Killed My Father, A Woman's Battles and Transformations, Change, Monique Escapes and Collapse, and the editor of a book on the social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, making him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation worldwide.
Tash Aw (Translator)
Tash Aw was born in Taiwan and is the author of five novels, three of which have been longlisted for the Booker Prize including his most recent novel, The South. His work has won the Whitbread First Novel Award, a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and an O. Henry Award, and has been translated into over twenty languages. His translation of Edouard Louis' A Woman's Battles and Transformations was shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize.