1951: Démons et merveilles

Paris, Pierre Seghers (coll. Poésie 51 n°137), 35 pages.

“A collection of very short poems, very hermetic (I constantly have to look up words and allusions) and very erudite (one expects nothing less from Françoise d’Eaubonne 🙂 ). Classical and traditional, it didn’t fill me with the same wonder as some of her other (too rare) poems.
A precious read, however, for its rarity, the work and the words.”

A reader on the Net

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1949: Indomptable Murcie

René Julliard, coll. Sequana, 559 pages.

While this book is dedicated to the soul of her father, it is her Spanish roots that Françoise evokes through the story of this woman, dispossessed because she was a rebel, who, at the head of her Cuadrilla, was killed by the French in front of Saragossa in 1816 during Napoleon’s war of occupation.

In this novel of love, sound and fury, the “Sangre y Fuego” part making up half of the 550 pages, Françoise perfects her art of striking description, which transports us to the heart of the action, which is described with a visual meticulousness. .

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1947: Comme un vol de gerfauts

Julliard, coll. Sequana, 526 pages.

Awarded the Readers’ Prize in 1947, this roman-fleuve announces themes and forms dear to Françoise that will be found throughout her novels. The sea, its buccaneers and its shipwrecks (at her request, Françoise’s ashes will be scattered by a sailboat off the coast of Morbihan), transforms the historical novel into a psychological narrative, because she thought this form was “more accessible to our modern sensibility”, as she says in the introduction. Hence our feeling, according to Élise Thiébaut, “to live adventures from the inside”, reinforced by striking, very pictorial descriptions. (Vincent)

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1944: Le Cœur de Watteau

Julliard, 354 pages.

Written between 1942 and 1943, this novel is a succession of detailed images and earthy dialogues. The misery of the times that Françoise navigates as best she can finds an echo in the descriptions that she makes of popular life under Louis XIV. A whole world of craftsmen, shopkeepers and rank and file soldiers comes to life in these pages against the backdrop of the life and paintings of Antoine Watteau. Women are also very present there, especially Morena, who embodies a hard-won and preserved independence. This novel, which is deftly constructed in a masterly way, is surprisingly mature for a 22-year-old author. (Vincent)

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1943 : Littérature n° 2

Paris, Julliard, collection Sequana, (190 pages ?)

Texts and poems by : Robert Antelme, Gabriel Audisio, Jean Baudry, Pierre Béarn, André Berry, Claude Boncompain, Louise Bresson, Jeanne de Castro, Jean-Louis Curtis, Max Dietlin, Maurice Druon, Raymond Dumay, Françoise d’Eaubonne, Paul Gadenne, Kléber Haedens, Simone Jouglas, René Laporte, Jean Larcena, Henri Laville, René Lefèvre, Fernand Lequenne, Jean Loisy, Jean Massin, Jacques Mauchamp, Jean Merrien, P. van der Meulen, Raymonde Michaud, Robert Morel, Georges Neveux, Albert Ollivier, Jean Proal, C.-A. Puget, Silvio Ray, Alice Rivaz, Pierre-Maurice Richard, Henri Rode, Jean Rougeul, Claude Roy, René Tavernier, Maurice Toesca, Anne de Tourville, Claire Vallier, Nicole Vedrès.

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1942: Colonnes de l’âme

Editions Lutetia, coll. Itinéraire n°1.

Handwritten preface by Joë Bousquet. The series Itinéraires under the direction of Jacques Aubenque, who wrote the afterword to this collection.

Eighteen poems by Françoise, aged 22, divided into four themes (Love, Faith, Dream, Revolt), each illustrated with a drawing by the author. (Vincent)

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