Raconter la pauvreté

The purpose of this paper is to cast some new light on the poverty issue. Unlike the discourse of international organizations, whose aim is to quantify the extent of the issue, the arts in general, and literature/cinema in particular, use poverty as a vantage point to highlight the humanity of the destitute and contrast it with politicians’ and international organizations’ cynicism. Thus, authors become the flag bearers of a movement that brings poverty to the public fore, with its nuances and hidden sides. Several contemporary literary texts will be analysed as cases in point.