An Illiterate in Paris

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An illiterate in Paris

In countries where free and compulsory education has been applied for generations, Illiteracy is no national problem. Yet in all countries, even the most advanced, a small residue remains of adults who, for one reason or another, have never learned to read or write. What is the position of the few who have somehow slipped through the network of compulsory education? What does it mean to be an adult illiterate in a society where life is organized on the assumption that everybody can read and write? The French writer Marguerite Duras decided to find out and managed to discover a middle-aged woman factory worker living at Romainville, a suburb of Paris, who could neither read nor write. The answers she gives in the Interview published below …