The writer who prostituted himself to write his novel

She signs the literary buzz of autumn. By recounting, in her latest book La maison , her two years in a brothel in Berlin , Emma Becker appeases our curiosity. At thirty, the young feminist writer who looks like a little model girl is already at the origin of the erotic box Mr , a novel that explores the notion of desire and domination in a contemporary Lolita. Why this new Virginie Despentes is the new author to follow closely.

Certainly, by featuring babes burning with desire for men twice their age, his previous novels gave us clues about his attraction to sugar daddies. But how and why did Emma Becker voluntarily become a prostitute ? Always fascinated by these women who sell their bodies, both at Zola and in reality, the Franco-German writer settles in Berlin . When she realizes that prostitution is legal there and that brothels are well established, she jumps at the chance.

First with the idea of writing a laboratory book on the subject, the young woman addicted to gonzo journalism chooses to enter a brothel . And because she understands that the girls' testimonies would not be enough to understand the mechanisms at work, she decides to get hired by the brothel to become a prostitute herself. A happy experience for Emma Becker who, while she had only planned to stay there for one year, will ultimately stay for more than two years.

Obsessed by the power of seduction of women over men, this ex-student of literature at the Sorbonne was not at her first attempt with La maison . Faithful reader of the sulphurous writer and journalist Hunter Thompson ( Las Vegas Parano ) and of Louis Calaferte and his provoking The Mechanics of Women , Emma Becker writes above all to explore the omnipotence of desire in men and women.

Make no mistake: if Emma Becker agreed to test the experience in a Berlin brothel , it is because she was in charge. In this laboratory of human behavior where men were most often looking for therapists and second mothers, only women had the power to choose their clients or say no to a practice.

An incredible margin of expression in the eyes of the activist for the legalization of prostitution, who repeats to whoever wants to listen that there is indeed a great freedom in this job: " it is not only servitude. , it is also a choice that women have the right to make for themselves without being told how they are supposed to use their bodies ”. The problem of France on the subject in his eyes? “ There is a kind of Puritanism which means that we do not want to talk at all about the whores who do this job and who are proud of it. ”Bam.

The house , Emma Becker, Flammarion, € 21

Also discover: Lily Barbery-Coulon: the one who made peace with her body .