Invited by the Slovenian Sociological Society, Professor Ana Cristina Santos contributed to the Between the Lines column — a space where sociology and fiction intersect to interpret the social world — by sharing one of the books that has most deeply influenced her academic thinking and research trajectory.
The selected work was Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon, originally published in 2009 and later edited by Penguin Books (2019) and by Iztok Ilc (2022) in its Slovene edition. Professor Santos’ original contribution was written in English and subsequently translated into Slovene for publication.
In her reflection, Ana Cristina Santos explores how Eribon’s memoir — written from a sociological and psychosocial standpoint — resonates with her own research on LGBTQI+ issues, ageing, class, belonging, and displacement. She highlights the book’s powerful engagement with life trajectories, social ruptures, memory, and the enduring relationship with places of origin, themes that also strongly emerge from her fieldwork with queer life stories. Framed as a narrative of transformation, Returning to Reims is described as a work about “breaking up, breaking free, breaking out — to rebuild.
—
Returning to Reims, by Didier Eribon
English
Being a compulsive reader of fiction, my sociological work on LGBTQI+ issues and ageing has been influenced by a number of authors and books over the years. The moment of selecting that one book is always daunting. Fortunately, when looking back and even in my recent readings, other books would have equal standing in this reflection about diversity, displacement and the search for a sense of self, crucial to becoming a subject of rights. However, something touched me beyond words when reading Returning to Reims, by Didier Eribon, published originally in 2009 and, later on, in an English translation with Penguin Books. Truly overwhelming and beautifully written, this is a story that cuts across a thousand layers of belonging and letting go, like an always unfinished melody, intersecting rural and urban, class, sexual orientation, loss, ruptures and discoveries along the life course. Written by a sociologist, it is a memoir about becoming – or coming of age, if you prefer – written in the most poignant, honest way. The style of writing, making clear use of a psychosocial approach, resonates with much of what I encountered during fieldwork with queer people, whose life stories, despite their diversified backgrounds, seemed to converge in this shared pain regarding their – daily or mediated by past memories – relation with the place of origin. Do we ever escape it, fully? Do we dream about returning, actually? What is there that is so terribly painful and simultaneously inescapably hopeful when looking back and putting our childhood self and ourselves today side by side? Is our work a way to respond to challenges faced back then or do we somehow hope we may contribute to transform a place by simply embracing the extent to which we changed over the years? In one sentence, this is a book about breaking up, breaking free, breaking out – to rebuild. The perfect moment to recall another unsurmountable (fictional?) writer who once said “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” (Leonard Cohen, Anthem).
Slovene
Ker sem obsedena bralka leposlovja, je na moje sociološko delo o LGBTQI+ vprašanjih in staranju tekom let vplivalo veliko avtorjev in knjig. Trenutek izbire tiste ene knjige je vedno nekoliko zastrašujoč. Na srečo, ko pogledam nazaj, pa tudi na svoja nedavna branja, lahko rečem, da bi številne knjige imele enako pomembno mesto v mojih razmišljanjih o raznolikosti, iztirjenosti in iskanju občutka sebe, tako ključnih za postajanje subjekt pravic. Vendar pa me je nekaj ganilo onkraj besed, ko sem brala Vrnitev v Reims Didierja Eribona, ki je bila prvotno objavljena leta 2009 in kasneje prevedena v angleščino pri založbi Penguin Books.
To je resnično prepričljiva in čudovito napisana zgodba, ki jo preči tisoč plasti pripadanja in zapuščanja, kot nikoli nedokončana melodija, ki preči ruralno in urbano, razred, spolno usmerjenost, izgubo, prelome in odkritja skozi življenjski potek. Napisana s strani sociologa na najbolj ganljiv in iskren način, gre za spomin o postajanju – ali odraščanju, če želite.
Slog pisanja, ki se jasno naslanja na psihosocialni pristop, odmeva z marsičim, kar sem srečala med raziskovalnim delom s kvir ljudmi, katerih življenjske zgodbe – ne glede na raznolika ozadja – oscilirajo okoli skupne bolečine glede njihovega odnosa s svojim mestom izvora, bolečine, ki je bodisi dnevna ali posredovana skozi pretekle spomine. Ali kdaj pobegnemo temu – v celoti? Ali sanjamo o vrnitvi – in to resno? Kaj je tisto, kar je tako strašno boleče in hkrati neizogibno polno upanja, ko gledamo nazaj in postavljamo svojega otroškega jaza ob bok sebi danes? Ali je naše delo način, kako odgovarjamo na izzive, s katerimi smo se soočali takrat, ali pa nekako upamo, da lahko prispevamo k preoblikovanju prostora preprosto s tem, da sprejmemo, koliko smo se skozi čas spremenili?
V enem stavku – to je zgodba o razhajanju, osvobajanju, bežanju – za ponovno izgrajevanje. Popoln trenutek, da se spomnimo drugega neprekosljivega (fikcijskega?) pisca, ki je nekoč rekel: »V vsem je razpoka, tako tudi vstopi svetloba« (Leonard Cohen, Anthem).
–
