This novel, Françoise’s very first, published in an abridged version, is probably lost forever. This is the story behind it.

1932, Denoël et Stelle publishers launch a literary competition for under-13s. A minimum of 200 lines was required to get to the starting line. Françoise was 12 years old, and entered a novel that ran to 225 pages. The jury, a little taken aback, launched an investigation, discreetly questioning the parish priest: in addition to its unusual size, the text contained assumptions about the characters’ love lives that seemed hard to attribute to a child’s pen. After checking, Françoise won the competition.

This was not her first try, having completed her first 50-page novel at the age of 10, a few acts of Cornelian drama and a number of poems, for in her childhood she placed poetry above all else. Although Dostoyevsky, Zola and so many others shone brightly in her firmament at an early age, it was Rimbaud, “whose entire work in verse I soon knew by heart“, who remained for her the Indépassable: she devoted three books to him.

The child did not go unnoticed. Colette, who had published two poems she had written when she was nine, let her know that her destiny was there: she was going to be a writer, she had to be. Françoise was so overwhelmed by this encounter that her Goddess intimidated her all her life, to the point where she didn’t dare (Françoise, don’t dare!) to contact her for fear of losing precious moments of her genius. From memory, I think they only met once.

Françoise d’Eaubonne was born to literature in 1933. (Vincent)