The Nun

Denis Diderot · 1713–1784 · France

Originally La Religieuse (French)

Why it matters

A young woman forced into a convent narrates the cruelty and predation she finds behind its walls. Written as a hoax to lure a friend back to Paris, it became one of the Enlightenment's fiercest attacks on religious institutions.

At a glance

Direct confessional prose, though the institutional cruelty is unrelenting.