Sagan, Françoise
Sagan, Françoise
(fräNswäz` sägäN`), pseudonym ofFrançoise Quoirez
(kwärĕz`), 1935–2004, French novelist, b. Françoise Quoirez. She became famous with her precocious first book, Bonjour tristesse (1954, tr. 1955), a bittersweetly amoral portrayal of a sophisticated, disillusioned French society. Her other novels include Un Certain Sourire (tr. 1956), Aimez-vous Brahms? (1959, tr. 1960), and Un Sang d'aquarelle (1987, tr. Painting in Blood, 1988).Bibliography
See study by J. Miller (1988).
Sagan, Françoise
Born June 21, 1935, in Cajarc, Lot Department. French writer.
Sagan graduated from a Catholic lycée in Paris. Her first novels, Bonjour Tristesse (1954; Russian translation, 1974) and A Certain Smile (1956), expressed the attitude of French youth who had become indifferent to society and its problems. The novels Those Without Shadows (1957), Aimez-vous Brahms? (1959; film version, 1961; Russian translation, 1974), The Wonderful Clouds (1961), La Chamade (1965), and A Few Hours of Sunlight (1969; Russian translation, 1972) depict young girls who on the threshold of womanhood confront an unresolvable problem—the need for love and the impossibility of finding it. Sagan’s prose is noted for its clarity, precision, and subtlety of psychological characterization; however, her novels suffer from narrowness of subject and social outlook, the limited nature of the problems examined, and repetitiveness. Her plays, which include Castle in Sweden (1960), At Times, Violins (1962), and Valentine’s Mauve Dress (1963), are light comedies in the tradition of the théâtre des boulevards.
WORKS
Des Bleus à l’âme. Paris, 1972.Un Profil perdu. Paris, 1974.
REFERENCES
Shkunaeva, I. Sovremennaiafrantsuzskaia literatura. Moscow, 1962.Zonina, L. “Pechal’nyi vzgliad.” In F. Sagan, Nemnogo solntsa v kholodnoi vode i drugiepovesti. Moscow, 1974.
Hourdin, G. Le Cas Françoise Sagan. Paris [1958].
Sénart, P. Chemins critiques. [Paris, 1966.]
Z. A. ZONINA