A first guide to the character theory of finite groups of Lie type

This survey article is an introduction to some of Lusztig's work on the character theory of a finite group of Lie type $G(F_q)$, where $q$ is a power of a prime~$p$. It is partly based on two series of lectures given at the Centre Bernoulli (EPFL) in July 2016 and at a summer school in Les Diablerets in August 2015. Our focus here is on questions related to the parametrization of the irreducible characters and on results which hold without any assumption on~$p$ or~$q$.