Marguerite Audoux
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Marguerite Audoux (French pronunciation: [maʁɡəʁit odu]; 7 July 1863 in Sancoins, Cher – 31 January 1937 in Saint-Raphaël, Var) was a French novelist.
Biography
Marguerite Donquichote, who took her mother's name, Audoux, in 1895, was orphaned by age three, following the death of her mother and abandonment by her father. She and her sister Madeleine initially lived with an aunt but ultimately spent nine years in the orphanage at Bourges. In 1877, Andoux was put to work as a shepherdess and farm worker in the region of Sologne. There, she fell in love with a local boy, Henri Dejoulx, but his parents would not permit them to marry.
Audoux moved to Paris in 1881. Desperately poor, she found occasional work as a seamstress and made ends meet with whatever menial labour could be found. She bore a stillborn child in 1883; the difficult pregnancy and labour left her permanently sterile.
In Paris, she took custody of her niece, Yvonne. It was Yvonne who at age sixteen inadvertently set in motion her aunt's literary career: Yvonne, while prostituting herself (without Audoux's knowledge) in the Parisian neighbourhood of the Halles, met a young man named Jules Iehl. Iehl, who also wrote under the pen name Michel Yell, was moved by the young woman's impossible situation and accompanied her home, where he met Audoux. Iehl and Audoux would remain romantically involved until 1912.
Yell introduced Audoux to the Parisian intelligentsia—a group that included Charles-Louis Philippe, Léon-Paul Fargue, Léon Werth and Francis Jourdain. He also encouraged her to write her memoirs. The memoirs fell into the hands of the celebrated author Octave Mirbeau and proved so compelling that Mirbeau immediately arranged to have them published.
Though success and critical acclaim followed quickly on the heels of the December 1910 publication of Audoux's memoirs, her next book was ten years in the making. The Studio of Marie-Claire, published in 1920, was merely a modest success; none of her subsequent novels--From the Mill to the Town (1926), The Fiancee (1932), and finally Soft Light, (1937)--matched the success of her bestseller debut.
After her death in January 1937, the novelist was buried in Saint-Raphaël, not far from the ocean she loved.
Works
- Marie-Claire, with a foreword by Octave Mirbeau (1910). English translation by John N. Raphael, with an introduction by Arnold Bennett, London, Chapman & Hall, 1911, and New York, Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.
- Audoux's first novel is the most autobiographical of the four. She describes her childhood and adolescence. The first part of the novel tells the story of her mother's death, of her father's departure, and of the nine years she spent in the orphanage of the convent Hôpital Général de Bourges. It was a dark period, made brighter however by the guiding presence of Sister Marie-Aimée. The second part of the novel takes place on the farm in Villevielle where Marie-Claire's first employers Master Sylvain and Pauline surround the young shepherdess with good-hearted affection. In the third part, Marie-Claire, now a young woman, falls in love with Henri Deslois, the brother of the farmer's wife who followed Pauline. The young man's mother forbids Marie-Claire to see her son again. Marie-Claire returns to the convent where she sees Sister Marie-Aimée before leaving again for Paris.
- L’Atelier de Marie-Claire (1920), Grasset, Les Cahiers Rouges, 1987. (Marie-Claire's Workshop)
- The sewing shop where Marie-Claire found work is described as a big family. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Dalignac and the workers, forced to work in factories when the sewing shop did not have enough work for them, share the same dependence on the sewing shop's demanding and stingy clients. And so the novel is both a social portrait that precisely depicts the characters of the workers as well as a series of anecdotes that keep the plot of the novel moving forward. After the death of the shop's owners, the reader doesn't know if Marie-Claire will marry Clément (Mrs. Dalignac's nephew), a man she does not love.
- De la ville au moulin, Fasquelle, 1926. (From the City to the Mill)
- While trying to break up a fight between her parents, Annette Beauois is wounded in the hip and is left with a limp. She leaves for her uncle's mill, soon followed by her brothers and sisters that her parents entrust to her care due to their separation. At the age of twenty, she agrees to live with a friend of her brother's named Valère, who is an alcoholic and cheats on her. She leaves him while pregnant, going to Paris to give birth, but the child is stillborn. In Paris she gets back together with her family, then, after the war is over, she meets Valère again, who was severely wounded in the war. She is ready to give him a second chance.
- Douce Lumière, Grasset, 1937 (posth.) (Gentle Light)
- Douce (Gentle) is Eglantine Lumière's nickname. Douce's mother died while giving birth to her, causing her father to kill himself out of despair, and her maternal grandfather unjustly takes out his bitterness over the affair on the young girl. Douce finds comfort in the company of her young neighbour Noël, and over the course of time, their relationship turns into love. But Douce is the victim of a vicious campaign by Noël's family to keep the lovers apart. The heroine, traumatized by her experience but remaining true to Noël's memory, goes back to Paris where she befriends her neighbour Jacques, unhappy in love and then widowed. The pair tries for love but fails. Jacques leaves for the war. When he returns he has lost his mind.
Further reading
- Bernard Garreau, Marguerite Audoux, la couturière des lettres, Tallandier, 1991.
- Bernard Garreau, La Famille de Marguerite Audoux, Septentrion, 1998.
External links
- Works by Marguerite Audoux at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Marguerite Audoux at the Internet Archive
- v
- t
- e
- 1904 Myriam Harry
- 1905 Romain Rolland
- 1906 André Corthis
- 1907 Colette Yver
- 1908 Édouard Estaunié
- 1909 Edmond Jaloux
- 1910 Marguerite Audoux
- 1911 Louis de Robert
- 1912 Jacques Morel
- 1913 Camille Marbo
- 1914
- 1915
- 1916
- 1917 Maurice Larrouy
- 1918 Henri Bachelin
- 1919 Roland Dorgelès
- 1920 Edmond Gojon
- 1921 Raymond Escholier
- 1922 Jacques de Lacretelle
- 1923 Jeanne Galzy
- 1924 Charles Derennes
- 1925 Joseph Delteil
- 1926 Charles Silvestre
- 1927 Marie Le Franc
- 1928 Dominique Dunois
- 1929 Georges Bernanos
- 1930 Marc Chadourne
- 1931 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 1932 Ramon Fernandez [fr]
- 1933 Geneviève Fauconnier
- 1934 Robert Francis
- 1935 Claude Silve
- 1936 Louise Hervieu
- 1937 Raymonde Vincent
- 1938 Félix de Chazournes
- 1939 Paul Vialar
- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944 Éditions de Minuit (publisher)
- 1945 Anne-Marie Monnet
- 1946 Michel Robida
- 1947 Gabrielle Roy
- 1948 Emmanuel Roblès
- 1949 Maria Le Hardouin
- 1950 Serge Groussard
- 1951 Anne de Tourville
- 1952 Dominique Rolin
- 1953 Zoé Oldenbourg
- 1954 Gabriel Veraldi
- 1955 André Dhôtel
- 1956 François-Régis Bastide
- 1957 Christian Mégret
- 1958 Françoise Mallet-Joris
- 1959 Bernard Privat
- 1960 Louise Bellocq
- 1961 Henri Thomas
- 1962 Yves Berger
- 1963 Roger Vrigny
- 1964 Jean Blanzat
- 1965 Robert Pinget
- 1966 Irène Monesi
- 1967 Claire Etcherelli
- 1968 Marguerite Yourcenar
- 1969 Jorge Semprún
- 1970 François Nourissier
- 1971 Angelo Rinaldi
- 1972 Roger Grenier
- 1973 Michel Dard
- 1974 René-Victor Pilhes
- 1975 Claude Faraggi
- 1976 Marie-Louise Haumont
- 1977 Régis Debray
- 1978 François Sonkin
- 1979 Pierre Moinot
- 1980 Jocelyne François
- 1981 Catherine Hermary-Vieille
- 1982 Anne Hébert
- 1983 Florence Delay
- 1984 Bertrand Visage
- 1985 Hector Bianciotti
- 1986 René Belletto
- 1987 Alain Absire
- 1988 Alexandre Jardin
- 1989 Sylvie Germain
- 1990 Pierrette Fleutiaux
- 1991 Paula Jacques
- 1992 Anne-Marie Garat
- 1993 Marc Lambron
- 1994 Olivier Rolin
- 1995 Emmanuel Carrère
- 1996 Geneviève Brisac
- 1997 Dominique Noguez
- 1998 François Cheng
- 1999 Maryline Desbiolles
- 2000 Camille Laurens
- 2001 Marie NDiaye
- 2002 Chantal Thomas
- 2003 Dai Sijie
- 2004 Jean-Paul Dubois
- 2005 Régis Jauffret
- 2006 Nancy Huston
- 2007 Éric Fottorino
- 2007 Gwenaëlle Aubry
- 2008 Jean-Louis Fournier
- 2010 Patrick Lapeyre
- 2011 Simon Liberati
- 2012 Patrick Deville
- 2013 Léonora Miano
- 2014 Yanick Lahens
- 2015 Christophe Boltanski
- 2016 Marcus Malte
- 2017 Philippe Jaenada
- 2018 Philippe Lançon
- 2019 Sylvain Prudhomme
- 2020 Serge Joncour
- 2021 Clara Dupont-Monod
- 2022 Claudie Hunzinger [fr]
- 2023 Neige Sinno