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Sociologist Christian Baudelot’s books (Le niveau monte, Allez les filles !, etc.) have become reference texts throughout the world. For this book however, he completely changes register. Two years ago he watched his wife Olga, a researcher in her own rights, become dependent on drugs and move progressively and implacably closer to death. Before her, her mother and grand-mother died of the same incurable kidney condition. But Christian Baudelot discovers that his wife and him are ‘compatible’ and decides to give one of his kidneys to his wife. This book is the dual tale of this experience. “I did it for myself!” Claims the donor. “Because I witnessed the suffering of my father-in-law watching his wife wasting away.” But this explanation falls short of the complexity that this book aims to convey. First there is the humorous and precisely depicted account of the participants’ journey to the decision of the transplant. What does it mean to give a part of oneself? Then there is what happens afterward. The obscure emotions that the gift of an organ, and the expectations set by such a gift create. French medicine is reluctant to engage with the complexities of transplants involving live donors.
It is indeed a complex process of which Christian and Olga Baudelot, in all their intellectual awareness, provide a wonderful, deeply affecting testimony. Most crucially, they offer us a poignant and optimistic love story that has a universal appeal.

Christian Baudelot is professor of sociology at the École normale supérieure, and the author of books on education, social inequalities, suicide and happiness at work.
Olga Baudelot is a researcher in pedagogy at the INRP (National Institute for pedagogical research). She is a specialist on cultural programs for young children and heads a comparative study of socialization at nursery schools in France and Japan.