“Anyone can be the victim of a serious medical error and the process of trying to have it recognized is Kafkaesque”: writer Alexis Ragougneau, a patient in search of justice

Five years ago, Alexis Ragougneau's life suddenly shrank, reduced to limited horizons. "A shriveling," he says. Overnight, the writer began measuring every gesture of his daily life in minutes and hundreds of meters. How long before pain? Ten minutes of walking, at best. How far, for a simple walk, before suffering overtakes him? A kilometer and a half, at most. "When I'm sitting, it's fine, " he says, sitting in the armchair in his living room, on the ground floor of his small duplex in Versailles, near Paris . "But as soon as I stand up, it strains my groin and I feel pain. It's less severe in the morning than in the afternoon."

At 52 years old, Alexis Ragougneau is "condemned" to never leave the neighborhood where he lives, not far from the castle. Every morning upon waking, the author of acclaimed novels – Evangile pour un gueux (2016), Niels (2017) , Opus 77 (2019), published by Viviane Hamy – some of which have been shortlisted for prestigious awards, such as the Femina and the Goncourt, forces himself to take a short walk, never more than half an hour and always with breaks. His only escape is the RER station near his home, which allows him to go to Paris for lunch, near one of the stops on line C.

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