“In 1978, Mathieu Lindon met Michel Foucault. Lindon was twenty-three years old, part of a small group of jaded but innocent, brilliant, and sexually ambivalent friends who came to know Foucault. At first the nominal caretakers of Foucault’s apartment on rue de Vaugirard when he was away, these young friends eventually shared their time, drugs, ambitions, and writings with the older Foucault. Lindon’s friend, the late Hervé Guibert, was a key figure within this group.

“The son of Jérôme Lindon, the renowned founder of Éditions de Minuit, Lindon grew up with Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Samuel Beckett as family friends. Much was expected of him. But, as he writes in this remarkable spiritual autobiography, it was through his friendship with Foucault—who was neither lover nor father but an older friend—that he found the direction that would influence the rest of his life.”*

 

The Semiotext(e) publication of Lindon’s memoir LEARNING WHAT LOVE MEANS (2017) was translated by Bruce Benderson.*

See Bookforum interview with Lindon.

See Andrew Durbin’s article in Bomb.

Above image credit: Semiotext(e).

Below: Mathieu Lindon (right) and Hervé Guibert in Balthus’ studio, Villa Medici, Rome, 1987. Photograph by Hans Georg Berger.