BY G. CONNOR SALTER

Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero teaches English literature at the University of Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, and has a unique distinction: she is one of the few scholars in France exploring the works of C.S. Lewis.

Her first published work on Lewis was the 2011 book L’Évangile selon C.S. Lewis: Le dépassement du masculin/féminin dans la quête de Dieu (“The Gospel according to C.S. Lewis: Going beyond the masculine/feminine in the quest for God”), based on her PhD thesis. Since then, she has published articles on Lewis in various French- and English-language journals, including Mythlore, CultureCom and Polysèmes. In 2024, she co-edited Linguaculture volume 15, number 1, themed C.S. Lewis: The Re-enchanted Academic. She also serves as one of the hosts on Derrière la porte de l’armoire (“Behind the Wardrobe Door”), the first French podcast on C.S. Lewis.

Her work also explores such noted fantasy authors as Madeleine L’Engle, J.K. Rowling, and George MacDonald. She has contributed chapters to several books, including a chapter on A Wrinkle in Time to Dimensions of Madeleine L’Engle: New Critical Approaches edited by Suzanne Bray and a chapter on The Handmaid’s Tale to Objets de désir dans la littérature et les arts de l’image (“Objects of desire in literature and the visual arts”) edited by Gérald Préher and Cécile Meynard.

She was kind enough to answer a few questions.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

How did you first discover C.S. Lewis’s writing?

I first read Narnia as a child, but I could only read four of the seven volumes because the others had not been translated into French. When I spent a year in London as a French assistant at the age of 21, I realised there were more, and I loved them. Also, as a teenager, I read a translation of The Screwtape Letters, of Mere Christianity and of God in the Dock, (those three were the books that were easily available in French at the time, at least in Christian circles). I’d never heard of anything else he’d written until I met Jacques Sys, who became my PhD supervisor and who asked me to read the rest of Lewis’s fiction to help me decide whether I wanted to write my thesis on him. I was absolutely delighted with what I discovered and I have never regretted my decision.

What led you to decide to write about Lewis as an academic subject?

The only thing I knew at the beginning was that I wanted to combine my love of the Bible and of English literature. While I was looking for a topic for my Master’s dissertation, I heard about the Harry Potter controversy and I was really surprised to find out that some Christians objected to it. It seemed to me that J.K. Rowling was doing more or less the same thing as C.S. Lewis in Narnia, and I decided to look into it. When I went to see Jacques Sys to help me decide what to work on for my PhD, he ruled out Harry Potter as only four books had been published and mentioned Lewis and Tolkien as possible choices. He himself had been the first French person to write a PhD on C.S. Lewis in France, in 1986, and there had only been four others since then. He told me that the possibilities were immense and that the subject of gender in particular had not been seriously tackled, even in the English-speaking world (this was in 2004, so before all the books on the subject that have come out since then). Gender had always interested me, so it was an easy choice.

In general, would you say Lewis is well-known in France or becoming better known?

Lewis was virtually unknown in France before what I call the Harry Potter phenomenon, which led to an interest in fantasy, the first translation of the seven Narnia books and then the Narnia films. Thanks to these films, if you ask a French person today if they know what Narnia is, they will generally answer: “it rings a bell” and not “I’ve never heard of it,” as was probably the case before 2005, when the first Disney film was released. As for the name “C.S. Lewis,” that’s another story. He is known to most evangelical Christians for his apologetic writings, but they represent a very small percentage of the population (about 1%). The rest of the French population wouldn’t generally know his name.

I have recently discovered that this was not always the case. During Lewis’s lifetime and shortly after his death, there was an interest in him in French academic circles and several of his books were translated into French. He even received honorary doctorates in literature from two French universities (Dijon and Lyon) in 1962 and 1963. But then he was forgotten or treated with contempt (as a writer of fantasy). Jacques Sys told me that he received a lot of criticism from colleagues because he wrote his doctorate on Lewis. Until recently, fantasy was not considered serious literature in France. Even I received some negative feedback some 20 years later when I started working on him.

I understand you have taught Lewis’ work in some of your classes. What are some challenges and joys that come with teaching his work?

I have never taught a whole course on him, but I am currently doing some classes on his works in two of my courses. The first course, which I created 6 years ago and which I believe is unique in France, is on “The Bible and English Literature.” I select some biblical texts and then I present the students with some rewritings of the texts in question. I have a class in which we compare 4 texts: Adam and Eve’s temptation in Genesis 3, Jesus’s temptation in Matthew 4, Edmund’s temptation in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Diggory’s temptation in the garden at the end of The Magician’s Nephew. In another class, we compare 3 views of paradise: Revelation 21-22, the end of Pilgrim’s Progress and the end of The Last Battle.

This course is generally greeted with some suspicion at the beginning of term but by the end the students love it and they usually remark that they had no idea how influential the Bible was on English literature and language. One of the reasons they like the course is that I use texts like Narnia and Harry Potter, which they are familiar with (they grew up with the films) and they love discovering what there is behind the texts.

The second course is a twenty-four-hour course on “Literature of the Imagination,” which I started 3 years ago with a colleague. She does the gothic texts (Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.) and I do the fantasy (Tolkien, Lewis, Terry Pratchett, etc.) I have exactly 2 hours to teach Lewis so it is not much but I enjoy it and so do the students in general. I know for a fact that fantasy (let alone Lewis) has never been taught in our department before, so this gives me great pleasure.

Last year I applied to be a Fellow of the Inklings Project and was selected along with 12 other people from around the world. Thanks to this project, I will be able to run a whole course next year on C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I have yet to prepare it, but I already know that one of the challenges will be to get the students to read the books, given their length. I am still trying to work out exactly what I will ask them to do and how I will deal with the fact that not everyone in the class will have read the texts we will be studying together.

Not many people think about Lewis in connection to France, but he did fight in France during World War I. Have you gotten to explore that side of his life?

Yes, I have read everything I could get my hands on on the topic (which is not much, actually). I am especially interested because I live in the Somme region, very close to where Lewis, his brother Warnie, Tolkien and others came to fight during WW1. This gave me the idea of organizing a conference on “War, Fellowship, and Survival in the Lives and Works of C.S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits.” It will take place in June 2026 at my university in Amiens and there will be more information soon for anyone interested in attending.

How did you decide to start a podcast on C.S. Lewis?

I have long wanted to find a means of helping French-speaking people to know more about Lewis. I explored the possibility of writing a non-academic book, but I couldn’t find a publisher who was interested. I also wished to give an opportunity to students who wanted to know more. I teach a bit of Lewis at university, but I can’t dwell on the spiritual aspect. I remember being frustrated two years ago when I heard students discussing among themselves how misogynistic they thought the Genesis creation text was. I felt I couldn’t answer them because it would have become a theology class rather than a literature one. For all these reasons, a podcast seemed the perfect way to address both the general public and my former students.

You have written various times about how gender is presented in Lewis’ fiction or its adaptations. Do you have any advice for readers worrying about whether Lewis is sexist?

My general advice would be “never take anything out of its context”! To get a proper idea of what Lewis thought, it is important to have the historical and literary context. My supervisor asked me to read everything Lewis ever wrote to get a proper idea (including all his letters in three volumes, approximately 4,000 pages). I was a bit reluctant at first because it seemed a lot, but I am glad I did it now because I think it gave me an accurate idea of the kind of person he was, with his blind spots, his contradictions, but also his incredible intuitions and insights. On this subject, as on others, he was ahead of his time. One of the reasons he was so clear-sighted was that he understood and lived the Christian message in a unique way, especially for a person of his generation and gender. Even today he remains a model of humility.

You have also written several essays on Madeleine L’Engle, another fantasy writer influenced by George MacDonald who explored Christian themes in her own fantasy stories. What are some themes L’Engle explores that remind you of Lewis’ work?

A few years ago, I wrote an article on the influence of George MacDonald on writers such as C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle and J.K. Rowling. Among the common themes I explored were the theme of appearance versus reality (sight can’t always be trusted), the paradox of good and evil (evil being described as the absence of good rather than its opposite) and the meekness/ fierceness of the numinous characters (Aslan and the three celestial beings who accompany Meg in A Wrinkle in Time are described as being both benevolent and awe-inspiring). Finally, Meg Murry’s personality is very similar to Lucy Pevensie’s.

What are some future projects you are looking forward to?

I am currently on a sabbatical semester and I would like to explore C.S. Lewis’s relationship with France further. I’m also looking forward to preparing season two of our podcast. We were going to do Prince Caspian next, but because of the latest rumors (Netflix’s project with Greta Gerwig), I think we are going to go for The Magician’s Nephew. So, hopefully, when the film comes out in December 2026, we’ll have a lot of new listeners curious about the book. And then, of course, I have to prepare for the conference in June 2026! Lots of things to keep me busy.

More information about Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero and her work can be found on the University of Picardie Jules Verne website, on her ORCID ID, and her interview on the podcast Pints with Jack. You can listen to her talk on the way Lewis portrays heaven in The Last Battle on the C.S. Lewis Institute Chanel. “Derrière la porte de l’armoire” is available on Spotify and other major streaming services.