Delphine de Vigan's Pathographies: Writing as a Response to Trauma and Illness

Award-winning French writer Delphine de Vigan's career really took off in 2008 with her acclaimed novel No et Moi, but she is now better known for her 2011 offering, Rien ne s'oppose la nuit, in which she attempted to 'crire [sa] mre ' [write [her] mother], to tell the story of her family and how they coped with her mother's bipolar disorder. 1 She had published her very first novel, Jours sans faim, in 2001 under the pseudonym Lou Delvig, an account of 19 year-old Laure's anorexia and her stay in hospital to overcome it. 2 It later emerged, however, that this account was inspired by Vigan's own experience.