author
Pierre Desloges
b. 1747
A pioneering French deaf author, Pierre Desloges used his writing to defend sign language and challenge prevailing ideas about deaf education. His 1779 book offers a rare firsthand view of the Parisian deaf community in the eighteenth century.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1747 in the Touraine region of France, Pierre Desloges became deaf at the age of seven after smallpox. He later moved to Paris, where he worked as a bookbinder and upholsterer, and learned sign language at 27 from a deaf Italian.
In 1779, Desloges published Observations d'un sourd et muèt, a forceful response to an attack on signing in deaf education. The book is often regarded as the first published book by a deaf author and documents the use of an established sign language among deaf Parisians before the rise of France's famous deaf-education institutions. He also published political works during the era of the French Revolution; the details of his death remain uncertain.