Virginie Despentes: ‘I wasn’t writing Baise-Moi from a very good place’

The French author of the rape-revenge story on drug addiction, her debt to Charles Bukowski and her new #MeToo book set in publishingVirginie Despentes, 55, was born in Nancy, France, and lives between Paris and Barcelona. Her books include her 1993 debut, Baise-Moi, about two sex workers on a killing spree; the feminist manifesto King Kong Theory (2006), which discusses her gang-rape at the age of 17; and the bestselling Vernon Subutex trilogy, televised on Canal Plus in 2019. For the Times Lit