Redovnica

The Nun (written in 1760, published posthumously in 1796) is one of the most famous novels by the French enlightener and encyclopedist Denis Diderot. Conceived in the form of a poignant epistolary confession, the novel follows the young, gifted, and innocent Suzanne Simonin. Since she is an illegitimate child, her family wants to disown her and deny her inheritance, and forces her against her will to enter a convent and take monastic vows.

Through Suzanne's letters to her potential protector, Diderot paints an uncompromising and dark picture of life within the walls of a convent. The protagonist travels through several convents, confronting various forms of pathology and abuse — from the physical sadism and religious fanaticism of one convent abbess to the manipulative, repressed homosexuality and psychological instability of another.

Diderot attacks not religion itself, but the institutional oppression and unnatural isolation that destroy human reason and natural instincts. Steeped in Enlightenment ideas about the inalienable right to freedom of choice and personal autonomy, the novel represents one of the most powerful critical works of the 18th century and the pinnacle of French psychological and socio-critical prose.