The Illness Narratives back
Virgina Woolf
De la maladie
Rivages poche editions, 2020
Translated from English and presented by Élise Argaud



Virginia Woolf asks herself the following: “Why is illness not one of the major themes in literature, like love, struggle or jealousy?”. One of the major obstacles to the inclusion of illness as a theme would be the language itself. English, she says, would be taken aback to know how to evoke “chills and headaches”. In short, we lack the right words to talk about it. Finally, for Virginia, it was the experience of the illness itself that made her incommunicable.

Illness Narratives, series of vinyl paintings on wood, 15 x 21 cm, 2024-25