QUINTANE, Nathalie
The Cavalier

A Parisian ’68er embarks to the provinces to teach high school Philosophy but is soon driven out for “corrupting the youth.” Fifty years later, and teaching in the same French Alpine town, Nathalie Quintane delves into the scandal to probe the political order and the failures of a utopian generation. After the social upheavals of the late 1960s, the barricaded streets gave way to self-managed communal living in the backcountry. While it was the school teacher Nelly Cavallero who attracted the media spotlight, countless other insurgent unruly radicals contested the oppressive order, organizing in schools, factories, and communes. In The Cavalier, Quintane paints an intimate and urgently political portrait of revolutionary desires and the rising tides of reaction that determined, among many others, Nelly’s fate. [publishers' note]

Published by Winter Editions, 2025
Literature