Le Roman du malade: the report of the meeting with Olivier Philipponnat

On Thursday 17 September 2026, at the literary hotel Le Swann, the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust welcomed Olivier Philipponnat and Jérôme Bastianelli, editor and preface writer of the reissue of Louis de Robert’s Le Roman du malade, for a conversation hosted by Jacques Letertre, as part of the Rencontres des Amis de Marcel Proust.

First published in 1911 and awarded the same year’s prize that would become the Prix Femina, Le Roman du malade tells the story of a young writer overtaken by illness. Marcel Proust admired this book, and its author, Louis de Robert, played a decisive part in the birth of the Recherche: it was to him that Proust turned for advice before the publication of Du côté de chez Swann, and he was its first reader on proof.

The full report of this meeting is now online in the Meetings section of our resources.

Read the report