num_pages: 190
description: Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succès de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance.
language: English
title: The Nun
titlecomplete: The Nun (Penguin Classics)
characters: Mother de Moni, Sister Thérèse, Monsieur Manouri, Father Lemoine, Suzanne Simonin, Sister Ursule, Sister Sainte-Christine, Dom Morel
genres: Fiction, French Literature, Classics, France, 18th Century, School, Philosophy, Religion, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 7166
places: France
publisher: Penguin Classics