Tristan Garcia (born 5 April 1981) is a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

. His first novel, ''La meilleure part des hommes'' (2008), won France’s

Prix de Flore The Prix de Flore is a French literary prize founded in 1994 by Frédéric Beigbeder. The aim of the prize is to reward youthful authors and is judged by a panel of journalists. It is awarded yearly in November, at the Café de Flore in Paris. The ...

. It was translated into English in 2010 with the title ''Hate: A Romance''. His most important philosophical work, ''Form and Object'', was translated into English in 2014.

Life

Garcia was born in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

, to academic parents. His most formative years were spent in

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. He studied

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

and

Paris-Sorbonne University Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...

, and wrote his dissertation under Sandra Laugier. He currently teaches at

Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 The Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (french: link=no, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3), also referred to as Lyon 3, is one of the three public universities of Lyon, France. It is named after the French Resistance fighter Jean Moulin and specialises ...

Works of fiction

''Hate: A Romance''

Garcia's first novel, ''La meilleure part des hommes'' (2008), won France’s

. It was translated into English in 2010 with the title ''Hate: A Romance.'' The novel follows four lives from the rise of the Marais gay scene through Sarkozy's presidency, and it depicts the impact of

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. Garcia has said that he deliberately wrote a novel about events he did not experience in an effort to move away from the trend of

autofiction In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography. Autofiction combines two mutually inconsistent narrative forms, namely autobiography and fiction. An author may decide to recount their life in the third person, to mo ...

in France. Reviewing the English translation, Joanna Biggs praised the novel, calling it "compelling," and concluding that "the reader becomes as addicted to the unfolding drama as the narrator is." Alexander Nazaryan wrote that the book is "surprisingly taut and readable." He continued to praise the book for being "the kind of social novel his American counterparts too often avoid in favor of

solipsistic Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and ...

musings." Nazaryan also criticized the work, writing that "Garcia is fluent in the currents of thought that have animated recent French history, and he has the dexterity to be flippant and morbid within a single paragraph. But he has more digging to do in the human heart. The novel is hermetic in its singular occupation with the disastrous relationship between Doum and Will and the corollary romance between Liz and the married Leibowitz. Though all four have plausibly prominent roles in French culture, at times it appears as if no other figures of consequence exist, with secondary characters strutting too quickly across the stage."

Thought

''Form and Object''

''Form and Object'' can be grouped together with other works of

speculative realism Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy (also known as post-Continental philosophy) that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of p ...

and

object-oriented ontology In metaphysics, object-oriented ontology (OOO) is a 21st-century Heidegger-influenced school of thought that rejects the privileging of human existence over the existence of nonhuman objects.. This is in contrast to what it calls the "anthropocen ...

by philosophers like

Graham Harman Graham Harman (born May 9, 1968) is an American philosopher and academic. He is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. His work on the metaphysics of objects led to the developme ...

and

Manuel DeLanda Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) is a Mexican- American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School ...

. Garcia positions his work against "philosophies of access," which seek to theorize the limitations of subjective access to objective reality. Instead, Garcia proposes beginning to think about things before thinking about our conditions of access to those things. The book is divided into two parts: Book 1, titled "Formally," and Book 2, titled "Objectively." The first book proposes an

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...

of a flat world, in which all things are seen as being equally things, where the second book describes more specific objects, like animals, class, and gender. Graham Harman, in a review of the French edition of ''Form and Object'', claimed that it is "an intricate piece of work by an emerging philosopher who is now a force to reckon with." Nathan Brown criticized ''Form and Object'' for maintaining a division between objects and their conditions; for Brown, Garcia claims to solve the problems of our conditions of knowledge by fiat: Garcia simply resolves "to treat objects and things objectively while treating conditions of objectivity as secondary." Contrary to Garcia, following

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...

and

Ray Brassier Raymond Brassier (born 1965) is a British philosopher. He is member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Resear ...

, Brown maintains that these two problems can never be separated: "Speculative philosophy sets out from and returns to the crossroads of

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

; it has to travel both roads at once." Nonetheless, Brown argues that Garcia's work still deserves examination and attention. He claims that while Book I remains "conceptually fascinating," Book II becomes more problematic. Brown adds that, overall, "''Form and Object'' would be a more persuasive treatise if it included only Book I, reserving the topics in Book II for treatment elsewhere, in greater detail and with greater precision." Ultimately, Brown concludes that "the originality and energy of ''Form and Object'', and the lovely openness of the book’s tone, make the differential, relational ontology it elaborates conceptually and affectively enticing."

Works

Literary works

* ''La meilleure part des hommes'' (2008) * ''Mémoires de la jungle'' (2010) * ''En l'absence de classement final'' (2012) * ''Les cordelettes de Browser'' (2012) * ''Faber: Le destructeur'' (2013) * ''7'' (2015) * ''La Ligne'' (2016) *Âmes (2020)

Philosophical works

* ''L'Image'' (2007) *''Nous, animaux et humains. Actualité de Jeremy Bentham'' (2011) *''Forme et objet: Un traité des choses'' (2011) *''Six Feet Under: Nos vies sans destin'' (2012) *''La vie intense. Une obsession moderne'' (2016) *''Nous'' (2016)

Works in English

*''Hate: A Romance''. Trans. Marion Duvert and Lorin Stein. New York: Faber and Faber, 2010. *"Crossing Ways of Thinking: On Graham Harman's System and My Own." ''Parrhesia'' 16 (2013). 14-25. *''Form and Object: A Treatise on Things''. Trans. Mark Allan Ohm and Jon Coburn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. *"Another Order of Time: Towards a Variable Intensity of the Now." ''Parrhesia'' 19 (2014). 1-13. *''The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession''. Trans. Abigail RayAlexander, Christopher RayAlexander, Jon Cogburn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

Edited works

*Edition with Pierre-Alexandre Fradet of the special issue "Réalisme spéculatif", in ''Spirale'' (Montréal), issue 255, winter 2016

Interviews

*Garcia, Tristan. Interview by Sandra Laugier
"Interview: Tristan Garcia"
''BOMB Magazine'', 114, Winter 2011. *Garcia, Tristan. Interview by Liam Jones
"Interview with Tristan Garcia"
''Figure/Ground''. 28 September 2014.