Hachette, coll. le rayon fantastique n°99, 261 pages.
In the 30th century, other thinking races in the galaxy joined Humanity to form the great “anthropomorphic” confederation, centered on the planet Phaedra.
But one race, born of monstrous crossbreeding, possesses, along with thought, the most hideously opposite form to that of Man.
Hachette, coll. Bibliothèque verte n°208, 249 pages.
Françoise was very influenced by the venerable Hugo, and, in particular, his vision of the Vendée wars. This is why, while siding with the Republic, it paints a picture that is not Manichean. She also moves certain protagonists of her story from one camp to another, whose figurehead is a young woman who fights and plots, finding herself wherever the destiny of France is at stake. (Vincent)
Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1962, 158 pages.
Françoise saw in Flaubert the first of the bourgeois writers (with time and money) to have introduced what she considers to be the cardinal value of his class in literature:: investment in time (time is money).
If she doesn’t forget his misogyny and the atrocious pages he wrote against the defeated Paris Commune, she gives him credit for having devoted his time to trying to tear himself away from the mediocre thinking of his time and class (whether he succeeded is another story, editor’s note), and she distinguishes him from his contemporaries in that he was in epidermal rejection of the world (unlike Sand, Balzac, Stendhal…).
Françoise, Flaubertian? Certainly not. But she recognizes its literary merits and considers it an interesting textbook case. (Vincent)
Éditions Cino Del Duca, 258 pages.
A translation of J’irai cracher sur vos tombes. In 1946, published by Éditions du Scorpion, a book by Vernon Sullivan bearing this title. Deemed scandalous, it was then the subject of a lawsuit brought by a Cartel for social and moral action, which revealed that its real author was Boris Vian. He will be sentenced to 15 days in prison, quickly pardoned, for insulting morality. A few days before his death, he gave Françoise permission to write a new version of his novel under this title, whose scandalous scent and the taste for American thrillers at the time made it a literary success. (Vincent)
Hachette, coll. Bibliothèque verte n°185, 187 pages.
Alongside Don Quixote and Cyrano de Bergerac, the honoured bandit Mandrin Belle-Humeur has his place in Françoise’s pantheon. She also dedicated a book to him in 1957. Our French Robin Hood shares the limelight here with an 11-year-old girl who displays an audacity, courage and commitment “not expected of people of her sex”, to paraphrase an 18th-century phrase.
This novel from the Bibliothèque Verte series, much better written than the rest of the collection as far as I can remember, is very much in line with Françoise’s other children’s books: colorful and detailed descriptions, realistic historical context, adventures and twists and turns in every chapter. A book quite suited to instilling a taste for literature. (Vincent)
Marie Desplechins recalls her meeting with Françoise (in french) and talks about her Bibliothèque Verte books.
Moscou, Éditions scolaires d’État, 1963.
Russian version of The Space Submarine, republished by Prosvechtchenie in 1973, 70 pages. This edition is attributed to “Françoise d’Obonne” and the title is in (approximate) French “Voyage en cosmos”.
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