Pascal Aquien’s Lucrèce n’est pas une femme is not a conventional biography. It is a kaleidoscope of a life, a portrait told through fragments, reflections, and conversations that drift between confession, philosophy, and performance. The book centers on an extraordinary figure, André B., who became Lucrèce, an 86-year-old transgender man who lived much of his life as a cabaret artist in Paris. The choice of form is as bold as its subject: instead of a chronological narrative, Aquien structures the book as an alphabetical and thematic glossary. Each entry offers a piece of Lucrèce’s existence, an anecdote, a confession, or a philosophical musing, all contributing to a puzzle that the reader is invited to complete in any order they wish. The effect is one of freedom and fluidity, mirroring the life of its protagonist, who lived by no fixed rules, gender expectations, or literary conventions.
The meeting between Pascal Aquien, a university professor known for his academic works on Oscar Wilde and Thomas De Quincey, and Lucrèce, a flamboyant artist who once shared stages and friendships with figures like Jean Marais and Marlene Dietrich, seems at first unlikely. Yet their dialogue reveals an unexpected harmony. Aquien, with his scholarly precision and literary sensibility, listens to Lucrèce’s memories and contradictions with empathy and curiosity. What emerges is not merely a portrait of an individual but a meditation on identity, art, and the human need to perform roles that both conceal and reveal our true selves. Lucrèce is not presented as a tragic figure but as someone who has lived intensely, with humor and resilience, despite the hardships of a childhood shadowed by an alcoholic stepfather and an adored but distant mother.
