1954: Une pomme rouge : mon cœur

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1954 | 1953-1961 Time to learn to live, 2.1 Bibliographies, Poetry

Paris, Pierre Seghers (coll. Poésie 54 n°374), 15 pages.

Titled with a verse by Nazim Hickmet and dedicated to Henri Lefèbvre, nine poems in three sections. The first on love, its struggles and its sufferings, the second in memory of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (four years later, Françoise will choose “Julius” as a middle name for her son). The last section, Trois poèmes pour mon Parti (Françoise was then a member of the Communist Party), contains a long poem in memory of her father to tell him what she owes him for her communist commitment. (Vincent)

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1953: Atalante délivrée

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1953 | 1953-1961 Time to learn to live, 2.1 Bibliographies, Miscellaneous novels

Probably a lost work, we can only speculate as to its content. In this book, published two years after Le Complexe de Diane, we will certainly be dealing with the Greek heroine Atalanta, educated by Artemis after being abandoned by her father. She is reputed to have lived in ancient Greece, initially refusing marriage and indulging in extraordinary feats. She was the only woman to join the Argonauts to conquer the Golden Fleece alongside Jason.

We find the Atalante who could only be overtaken in the race by Hippomène’s deception evoked in Le Complexe de Diane, where Françoise expresses her attachment to this figure of the free woman. No wonder she wanted to prolong the relationship. (Vincent)

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1952: Ivelle

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1952 | 1933-1952 Fuckin' youth, 2.1 Bibliographies, Miscellaneous novels

Julliard, 272 pages.

Ivelle is the story of a young girl of today. An ardent, restless soul, thirsting for justice… She believes she has discovered a kind of superman in Yvon, who sees himself as the founder of a new philosophy… She follows him to Paris, to the circles of Saint-Germain-des-Prés… She soon finds herself embroiled, along with her master, in a resounding murder case. (extracts from the 4th cover)

Apart from the murder story, you don’t have to be Sherlock Homes to guess that this novel is based on Françoise’s background: Yvon, wouldn’t you be Jean-Charles Pichon, the author of obscure interpretations on the history of myths? (Vincent)

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1951 : Le Complexe de Diane ; érotisme ou féminisme

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1951 | 1933-1952 Fuckin' youth, 2.1 Bibliographies, Philosophical essays

Paris, Julliard, 301 pages.

In response to the male and conservative criticism leveled at Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex , Françoise d’Eaubonne, a successful young novelist, responded with this book written in a few weeks and published with much hoopla by Julliard in 1951.

In this text, Françoise rushes to the front with the ardor that has already earned her the ire of Françoise Mauriac, with whom she clashes. She attacks all the conservatisms expressed about the place of women (or, rather of “woman,” as they say) in society. And does it cleverly: psychoanalysis and communism reign supreme over the left-wing intellectual life of the time. (Vincent)

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