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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1951: Démons et merveilles

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

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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1951: A flight of a Falcon

by | Updated on 09/06/2025 | Published on 04/05/1951 | 2.1 Bibliographies, English

McGraw-Hill Book Company.

English translation by Naomi Walford of Comme un vol de gerfauts. Awarded the Prix des Lecteurs in 1947, this long novel heralds the themes and forms dear to Françoise’s heart, which were to recur throughout her novels. The sea, its buccaneering and shipwrecks (at her request, Françoise’s ashes will be scattered by a sailing ship off the Morbihan), and above all the historical novel transformed into a psychological narrative, because it seemed to her that this form was “more accessible to our modern sensibility”, as she says in the introduction. Hence our feeling, according to Élise Thiébaut, “of living the adventures from the inside”, reinforced by striking, highly pictorial descriptions. (Vincent)

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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1950 : Unbezähmbar schlägt das Herz

by | Updated on 09/06/2025 | Published on 04/06/1950 | 2.1 Bibliographies, German

Original title Indomptable Murcie, translation by Franz Geiger, Franz Ehrenwirth Verlag, Munich, 1950, 374 pages

German translation of Indomptable Murcie. Although 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 full of love, noise and fury, of which the “Sangre y Fuego” section accounts for half the 550 pages, Françoise perfects her art of vivid description, plunging us into the heart of the action, described with picturesque meticulousness.

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1949: Indomptable Murcie

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1949 | 1933-1952 Fuckin' youth, 2.1 Bibliographies, Historical novels

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

by | Updated on 18/10/2024 | Published on 04/05/1947 | 1933-1952 Fuckin' youth, 2.1 Bibliographies, Historical novels

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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