Didier Eribon was born in ReimsContemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. Authors Online into a working-class family. He was the first in his family to finish secondary education and abandon his working-class identity. He credits his mother with helping him achieve this; a factory worker, she had to work overtime to be able to pay for his education.Interview about the book, The Guardian, May 27th 2018 Working as a hotel porter at night and going to college during day, abandoning his parents' ways of life, Eribon felt like a working-class "traitor". He never became part of the rich elite, whose children even in education have different routes, the grandes écoles for the elite. The non-elite attend the universities.
