Description
Paper Title: "On the Rock of Exiles: Victor Hugo in the Channel Islands"Having escaped Paris following Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’état in December 1851, Victor Hugo became France’s most famous exile. The writer and elected member of the National Assembly would settle first in Jersey in 1852 and then in Guernsey three years later, where he continued to defy the Second Empire until its collapse in 1870 and his return to his home country. Exile deepened Hugo’s perspectives about the flux of history and the flow of natural creation, both of which he saw as the hallmarks of a universally democratic and divine order. His political thinking and his literary imagination were reinvigorated by the experience of feeling at once isolated away from France and belonging on what he called ‘the rock of hospitality and of freedom’. From his outspoken support for international republican causes, such as the abolition of slavery and of capital punishment, to some of his most celebrated works – including his worldwide bestseller Les Misérables (1862) – exile remains synonymous with his renown. This talk will explore the reasons why Hugo came to believe that Exilium vita est (‘Life is exile’ and/or ‘Exile is life’), to recall the Latin maxim he engraved above one of his doorways in Guernsey, and how it shaped this extraordinary period of his career.
| Period | 15 Nov 2024 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | London, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |