please put everything in order before leaving

Judith Godrèche

Éditions Le Seuil, 288 pages, 2026

Illustrated

Why you should look at it:

√ A major literary voice with political force

√ A powerful exploration of childhood, memory, power, and silence that resonates with current conversations

√ Strong international and crossover appeal

Blending lyrical prose with photographs, drawings, and personal archives, Please Put Everything in Order Before Leaving is a formally innovative work of literary nonfiction that explores childhood, memory, and the formation of identity. Moving away from linear autobiography, French actress and director Judith Godrèche revisits formative experiences through a fragmentary structure that mirrors the ways memory is assembled, fractured, and revised over time.

Written in a clear, restrained voice, the book examines power, silence, and agency from the perspective of the child, transforming intimate material into a space of ethical and literary reflection. Precise and emotionally controlled, the text aligns with contemporary autofiction and visual nonfiction, engaging questions of authorship, testimony, and the limits of self-narration.

Its hybrid form situates the work at the intersection of memoir, essay, and visual narrative, offering both intellectual rigor and emotional resonance. For readers of Annie Ernaux, Maggie Nelson, and Rachel Cusk.

Judith Godrèche is a French actress, director, and writer whose career spans more than four decades in European and international cinema. In recent years, she has emerged as a central voice in France’s cultural reckoning with abuse of power in the film industry, publicly recounting her experience of grooming and sexual abuse as a minor by director Benoît Jacquot and filing a formal complaint, which helped spark national debate.