10 September 2026
Proust in Prison: the report of the meeting with Laurent Vinatier
On Thursday 10 September 2026, at the literary hotel Le Swann, the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust welcomed Laurent Vinatier for a conversation led by Jérôme Bastianelli, as part of the Rencontres des Amis de Marcel Proust.
Imprisoned in Russia from June 2024 to January 2026, Laurent Vinatier told how two volumes of the Recherche, Le Côté de Guermantes and La Prisonnière, accompanied him from prison to prison: pages learned by heart during exercise, the beach at Cabourg pictured each evening in his cell at Lefortovo, and literature which became, in his words, “a way of holding on”.
The full report of this meeting, followed by the exchange with the audience, is now online in the new Meetings section of our resources.