Adèle Haenel turns to writing with a debut that traces the anatomy of violence

Adèle Haenel, known for her acting career and for two César awards, publishes her first book, *Viser juste*, described by Le Temps as an inquiry that moves between fiction and documented fact. The book follows a character the paper calls a "ghost child," delivered into the control of a pedocriminal film director, and traces how systems of violence and domination take hold — and how one might break free of them.

According to Le Temps, one pivotal scene shows a gymnastics teacher urging her students to question everything treated as self-evident, including the dominant discourses produced by patriarchal power. The teenage protagonist, described as numbed and constrained by injunctions to femininity, receives these words as a jolt — an invitation to become sensitive again. That drive toward emancipation, the paper writes, runs through the book like a torpedo, striking at every system of oppression it encounters, starting with the film industry itself.

That industry is the one Haenel left in 2020, walking out of the César ceremony in protest after an award went to Roman Polanski, who faces rape accusations. The year before, she had spoken publicly about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, becoming one of the voices that opened French cinema's #MeToo moment. The director she named, Christophe Ruggia, was convicted in April 2026, Le Temps notes.

Je refuse l'idée d'avoir à se justifier, comme il faut le faire au tribunal.

Adèle Haenel, in Le Temps

Haenel presents the book on stage at L'Heure bleue in La Chaux-de-Fonds on September 11, discussing, per the paper, what led her from acting toward writing.