Ben Rhodes

Michel de Montagne invented the personal essay.

The Marquis de Sade pioneered kinky prose.

Yes, he did.

And Marcel Proust pushed the very boundaries of what fiction could do.

But now we welcome a new member of the Pantheon, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, to that exclusive club.

Okay, so Sarkozy published a memoir in December of last year.

The book is called The Journal of a Prisoner.

In it, Sarkozy writes about his long stretch behind bars from October 21st of 2025 to November 10th of 2025.

Three weeks.

Yeah, for the BBC, he was sentenced to five years for conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign with money from the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.

But he was released a few weeks into the sentence while he awaits an appeal.

And during his 20 days in the clink, he did a lot of reading, writing, found God, because why not?

So thanks to Harper's, we have a short excerpt from the memoir to share with listeners.

It's translated from French by Lara Treisman, and it goes a little something like this.

I don't know if I can read all of it with a straight face, but I'm going to try.

I am not someone who likes to complain, who seeks pity or commiseration.

I don't know how to sulk, still, less how to pout.

Sitting down on the unmade bed on my first night in prison, I had a shock.

I had never felt, even during my military service, a harder mattress.

Not a glass of water, not a coffee, not an ounce of humanity.