Green, Julien

Green, Julien (Hartridge)

(1900– ) writer; born in Paris, France. Son of Americans living in France, he spent his entire youth in France except for three years at the University of Virginia (1919–22); later he visited the United States for extended periods. He grew up speaking English at home but French in all other situations; he wrote all but two of his works in French, even those set in America, such as his drama, South (1953) and the Civil-War trilogy that began with The Distant Lands (1989), as well as his multi-volume diaries. Most of his works—such as Adrienne Mesurat (1927) and Moira (1950)—are somber psychological studies of individuals set in grim households marked by thwarted passions, madness, and death, and are regarded as covertly expressing the tension caused by his Catholicism and homosexuality. In 1972 he became the first American elected to the Academie Française.