During the weekdays, I am a lawyer and at most a bit of a musician; on Sundays, I draw during the day. In the evenings, I am a witty author until late at night. What E.T.A. Hoffmann said about his double life between his role as a judge and his artistic-literary passion applies and continues to apply to most writers of his and our time. How do writers experience this tornness between two worlds, the constant switching between profession and vocation? How do they create the necessary space for their literary work? How do they reconcile the oppositions and tensions that inevitably arise from simultaneously engaging in a job and participating in literary endeavors? To all these questions, sociologist Bernard Lahire - following in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors like Howard S. Becker and Pierre Bourdieu - develops a theoretical framework based on a broad empirical study for a better understanding of the literary field as a unique social subfield that obeys different rules than more institutionalized spheres of life within society. The author portraits also provide insights into the work organization and conditions of very different contemporary French writers, thus offering an unusual approach to literature, which is illuminated against the backdrop of the societal conditions of literary creation, unlike what usually occurs. In this sense, Bernard Lahire's highly regarded work is a significant contribution to (literary) sociological enlightenment.