Neuroscientist Lionel Naccache Returns With a Genre-Defying "Essay-Fiction"
In "Habeas corpus," the researcher behind "Le Cinéma intérieur" and "Sujet, es-tu là ?" turns a thought experiment into an unclassifiable book about doubting one's own existence.
Le Monde's books section reports on a new work by Lionel Naccache, a neuroscience researcher previously known for "Le Cinéma intérieur" and "Sujet, es-tu là ?". His latest, titled "Habeas corpus," is described by the paper as an unclassifiable "essai-fiction" — an essay built as a thought experiment.
According to Le Monde, the book invites readers to doubt the status of their own existence, among other questions, blending Naccache's clinical background in neuroscience with a speculative, literary form rather than a conventional popular-science treatise.
The source material offers no further detail on the book's structure, publisher or length, so those specifics cannot be reported here. Readers who follow Naccache's earlier titles will recognize the same instinct to test philosophical questions of consciousness and selfhood through unconventional narrative devices, a thread Le Monde traces back through his prior essays.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.
