More than a dialogue or a debate, these conversations between Ernaux and Lagrave touch on subjects, from the feminist future to each woman’s class histories as viewed through the prism of the socio-historic transformations of the post-war period. 

Acknowledging a debt to Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of class transfuge, domination and distinction, a fresco emerges of the last 70 years in France, including references to Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Aron, and Simone de Beauvoir. 

A Conversation amounts to an extraordinary expression in book form of solidarity and friendship between two legendary figures who rose above their working-class origins while at the same time remaining true to them.