French Authors

Even though the Olympics are over we are still thinking of Paris. To highlight the host country of the 2024 Olympics, we’ve selected three of the most well known female French authors to check out!

Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986)

Born into a Bourgeois family, De Beauvoir was raised in a strict Catholic household. She was a devout follower until her 14th birthday when she had a crisis of faith. After this declaration, she threw herself into studying existence, math, literature and philosophy. In 1926, De Beauvoir began studying at the Sorbonne where she quickly became the best in her class. Upon graduation, De Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Sartre. Throughout the 1930s, De Beauvoir held many teaching positions across France. While teaching, female students had come out to accuse her of abusing them with one of the student’s parents filing complaints. When the Vichy took over the government during the Second World War, she began her literary career. The first book published was She Came to Stay in 1943. The book is based on her experiences with her partner Sartre, a student named Olage and herself to examine the complexity of relationships. Simone de Beauvoir’s best known book, The Second Sex was released in 1949. The Second Sex is nearly a thousand pages long and looks at the second rate status of women. At the time of its publication, the book caused several controversies including being on the Vatican’s forbidden list. Today, it is one of the early books of the Modern Feminist movement.

De Beauvoir also wrote several travel writing books, political, and an autobiography. In addition to her literary career, she also spoke out on many of the important issues of the time. She spoke out for Hungary’s independence, the United States in the Vietnam War and many feminist demonstrations for equality.

Later in life, she wrote about elderly in society and on death. Her last book was written in 1981 Adiex: A Farewell to Sartre. De Beauvoir died on April 14th 1986.

Colette (1873 – 1954)

Born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is one of the few authors to be known by her mononym. At age 20, Colette married her first husband, Henri Gauthier-Villars (Willy). Her first four books are centered around a French school girl. The Claudine series(Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, Claudine married Claudine and Annie) was written at her husband’s will. Willy published the books under his name and kept the copyrights and the royalties. Claudine was an instant success and spawned plays and merchandising which included cigarettes. Colette left Willy in 1906 and worked in the music hall where she met Missy. Missy was a woman who wore men’s suits. During 1906 and 1910, Colette wrote her next two books, La Vagabonde and L’Envers du music-hall. In 1912, Willy and Colette were divorced.

Colette remarried in 1913 to Henry de Jouvenel, the editor of Le Matin. At Le Matin, Colette wrote short stories and articles which included La Paix chez les betes. Colette’s best works come after 1920. In the 1920s, her novels Cheri, La Fin de Cheri and Le Blé en herbe focused on the post war youth of France. Her other novels from this period La Maison de Claudine and Sido reflect her childhood outside of Paris and served as her first foray into autobiographical writing. Cheri sold thirty thousand copies by the fall of its first year.

In the mid 1930s, Colette and Jouvenel got divorced and she married her third husband, Maurice Goudeket. One of the best works from her later life include Gigi. Towards the end of her life, Colette was confined to her Paris apartment due to arthritis. Colette died on August 3, 1954.

All of Colette’s works center around the female experience in the style of a humorous reality. The majority of her female characters are depicted having traditional roles. Her chosen writing method is the novella. By choosing to write novellas, Colette was able to experiment with different characters with various age ranges, job status and more.

Annie Ernaux (1940 – )

Annie Duchesne was born in 1940 in Normandy. Her family moved to Yvetot shortly after she was born and raised her in the working class district of the town. Annie’s school was filled with other working class children which impacted her life as a writer. In 1958, Annie left home for the first time which she writes about in Memoire de fille. After graduating from college in London, Annie worked as a secondary school French teacher.

Annie Ernaux published her first book in 1974, Cleaned Out which is a fictionalized story about her abortion in 1964 and moving to the middle class with her education. While still working as a teacher at the Centre for Distance Education, her second book A Man’s Place brought her literacy acclaim and success. A Man’s Life is the story of her father as a working class man. In 2000, Annie retired from teaching to write full time. Her magnum opus is The Years. The Yeats won Marguerite Duras and Francois Mauriax prizes, with the English translation shortlisted for the Man Booker prize international. In october of 2022, Annie won the Nobel Prize in Literature.