Autobiographies

Paris, Dagorno, 1135 pages. A whole century (or almost)! This voluminous collection brings together the various volumes of Françoise d’Eaubonne’s memoirs already published at different times in her life: Chienne de jeunesse (covering the period from 1930 to 1945), Les Monstres de l’été (from 1945 to 1965), L’Indicateur du réseau (which covers different periods up…

Paris, Encre, 350 pages. The third volume of Françoise d’Eaubonne’s memoirs, L’Indicateur du réseau traces important events in her life starting from the names of the places where they took place: with humour, she speaks of a “topographical assessment”. The story advances along the alphabetical thread of station names, and we meet her successively at…

Paris, Julliard, 464 pages. The second part of Françoise’s “early memoirs” begins with these words: “East Berlin, March 12, 1965 (my birthday). – My guide absolutely wants to offer to name a street in East Berlin after me. I did not deserve “this excess of honor”; if I accept it, it is because for most…

Paris, Julliard, 376 pages. This first volume of his memoirs revisits his childhood, up to 1944. It opens with Green Paradise, in which the Garden plays a key role as God’s finished work on earth. It is “the natural state of a beloved child, well nourished, in immediate contact with nature“. Then, with the move…

Paris, Buchet / Chastel, 391 pages. This book can be seen as the sequel to Je voulais être une femme, published the previous year. In any case, the literary process employed here is similar. In this opus, our heroine immerses herself in the resistance to the Algerian war, and the epic is picaresque: Mamerloy, one…