About this Event
Noble Lecture 2026 with French writer Adèle Yon
UCL French and Francophone Studies is delighted to welcome prize-winning writer Adèle Yon, author of the widely acclaimed Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth (Editions du Sous-Sol, 2025), to deliver the Noble Lecture 2026. Ms Yon will be in conversation, in French, with Dr Macs Smith (UCL French) and clinical psychologist Dr Ellen Iredale.
The lecture will be held on Thursday, 29 Jan 2026, 5-7pm, at the G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre (Roberts Building, entrance on Malet Place). All attendees are welcome afterwards at a reception. La Page French bookstore will be selling copies of Ms Yon’s book.
Born in Paris in 1994, Adèle Yon is a scholar, writer and chef. A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure specializing in Film Studies, she wrote Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth (My Real Name Is Elisabeth) as her research-creation doctoral thesis at the SACRe (Science, Art, Creation and Research) research institute in Paris. Published in February 2025 by the Editions du Sous-Sol, Adèle Yon’s PhD-turned-book has been awarded numerous prestigious awards and has met with widespread acclaim, selling over 200,000 copies and becoming a literary phenomenon in France.
Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth is both a scholarly and personal investigation into the violent destiny of Adèle Yon’s great-grandmother Elisabeth, diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcibly institutionalized soon after her marriage in 1940, and who was eventually lobotomized after years of electroshock treatment, at the behest of both her husband and father. With relentless determination, Adèle Yon pieces together interviews with family members, recovered letters, medical records and archival material to recover the buried but haunting story of Elisabeth (‘Betsy’), producing a gripping and deeply affecting work that defies generic classifications – a hybrid book that is at once an autobiographical account, a road trip, an essay on the history of post-war psychiatry and the figure of the madwoman in cinema, a tribute to archives and archival research, and a devastating indictment of violence against women.
The Noble Lecture is made possible through the generous support of UCL French alumnus, Peter Noble.
29 January 2026, Lecture: 5-7pm, Reception: 7 - 8.30pm
G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre in the Roberts Building
UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Image of Author.
Credits: Charlotte Krebs - Julliard.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
