Nathalie Sarraute

Nathalie Sarraute

Nathalie Sarraute (French pronunciation: [natali saˈʁot]; July 18, 1900, Ivanovo, Russia – October 19, 1999, Paris, France) was a French lawyer and writer of Russian Jewish origin.

Contents

Life

Enfance (Childhood). The cover of Sarraute's autobiography, published in 1983.

Sarraute was born Natalia/Natacha Tcherniak (Russian Наталья Черняк, Natalya Chernyak) in Ivanovo (then known as Ivanovo-Voznesensk), 300 km north-east of Moscow in 1900 (although she frequently referred to the year of her birth as 1902, a date still cited in select reference works), and, following the divorce of her parents, spent her childhood shuttled between France and Russia. In 1909 she moved to Paris with her father. Sarraute studied law and literature at the prestigious Sorbonne, having a particular fondness for 20th century literature and the works of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, who greatly affected her conception of the novel, then later studied history at Oxford and sociology in Berlin, before passing the French bar exam (1926-1941) and becoming a lawyer.

Le planétarium (The Planetarium). The cover of Sarraute's 1959 novel.

In 1925, she married Raymond Sarraute, a fellow lawyer, with whom she would have three daughters. In 1932 she wrote her first book, Tropismes, a series of brief sketches and memories that set the tone for her entire oeuvre. The novel was first published in 1939, although the impact of World War II stunted its popularity. In 1941, Sarraute, who was Jewish, was released from her work as a lawyer as a result of Nazi law. During this time, she went into hiding and made arrangements to divorce her husband in an effort to protect him (although they would eventually stay together).

Nathalie Sarraute died at the age of 99. Her daughter, the journalist Claude Sarraute, was married to French Academician Jean-François Revel.

Career

Sarraute dedicated herself to literature, with her most prominent work being Portrait of a Man Unknown (1948), a work applauded by Jean-Paul Sartre, who famously referred to it as an "anti-novel" and who also contributed a foreword. Despite such high critical praise, however, the work only drew notice from literary insiders, as did her follow-up, Martereau.

Sarraute's essay The Age of Suspicion (L'Ère du soupçon, 1956) served as a prime manifesto for the nouveau roman literary movement, alongside Alain Robbe-Grillet's For a New Novel. Sarraute became, along with Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras, and Michel Butor, one of the figures most associated with the rise of this new trend in writing, which sought to radically transform traditional narrative models of character and plot. Sarraute was awarded the Prix international de littérature for her novel The Golden Fruits in 1963, which led to greater popularity and exposure for the author. That same year, Sarraute also began working as a dramatist, authoring a total of seven plays, including Le Silence (1963), Le Mensonge (1965) and Elle est là (1993). As a result of Sarraute's growing popularity and public profile, she was invited to speak at a number of literary events both in her native country of France and abroad.

Nathalie Sarraute pictured centre.

Sarraute's work, including the novels Between Life and Death (1968), The Use of Speech (1980) and You Don't Love Yourself (1989), have been translated into more than 30 languages. Her work has often been referred to as "difficult," as a result of her experimental style and abandonment of traditional literary conventions. Sarraute celebrated the death of the literary "character" and placed her primary emphasis on the creation of a faithful depiction of psychological phenomena, as in her novella The Golden Fruits, consisting entirely of interior monologues, and the novel The Planetarium (1959), which focuses on a young man's obsession with inheriting his aunt's apartment. The constantly shifting perspectives and points of view in Sarraute's work serves to undermine the author's hand, while at the same time embracing the incoherence of lived experience.

In contrast to the relative difficulty of Sarraute's novels, her memoir Childhood is considered an easier read. Penned when she was over eighty years old, Sarraute's autobiography is hardly a straightforward memoir, as she challenges her own capacity to accurately recall her past throughout the work. In the 1980s, the autobiography was adapted into a one-act Broadway play starring Glenn Close. The issues with memory which Sarraute highlighted in her autobiography carried through to her last novel, Here, published in 1995, in which the author explores a range of existential issues relating to the formlessness of both individual and social reality.

Bibliography

  • Tropismes, 1939 (tr. Tropisms)
  • Portrait d’un inconnu, 1948 (tr. Portrait of a Man Unknown)
  • Martereau 1953 (novel)
  • L'Ère du soupçon, 1956 (tr. The Age of Suspicion) (essay)
  • Le Planetarium, 1959 (tr. The Planetarium) (novel)
  • Les Fruits d'or, 1963 (tr. The Golden Fruits ) (novel)
  • Le Silence 1964 (theatre)
  • Le Mensonge, 1966 (novel)
  • Entre la vie et la mort 1968 (novel)
  • Isma, ou ce qui s’appelle rien 1970 (theatre)
  • Vous les entendez ? 1972 (novel)
  • C’est beau 1975 (theatre)
  • « disent les imbéciles », 1976 (novel)
  • L’Usage de la parole 1980 (tr. The Use of Speech) (novel)
  • Enfance 1983 (tr. Childhood) (autobiography)
  • Tu ne t’aimes pas 1989 (novel)
  • Elle est là 1993 (tr. It is There) (theatre)
  • Pour un oui ou pour un non 1993 (theatre)
  • Ici 1995 (novel)
  • Ouvrez 1997 (novel)
  • Lecture 1998

See also

References

  • Jean-Louis de Rambures, "Comment travaillent les écrivains", Paris 1978 (interview with N. Sarraute, in French)

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Nathalie Sarraute — en 1983 Nom de naissance Natalyia (Natacha) Tcherniak Autres noms Tac …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Nathalie Sarraute — (* 18. Juli 1900 in Iwanowo; † 19. Oktober 1999 in Paris) war eine französische Schriftstellerin mit russischen Wurzeln …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Nathalie Sarraute — Nathalie Sarraute, cuyo nombre real era Natacha Tcherniak (Ivánovo, Rusia 19 de julio de 1900 – París, 19 de octubre de 1999), fue una escritora francesa de origen ruso …   Wikipedia Español

  • Enfance (Nathalie Sarraute) — Enfance Auteur Nathalie Sarraute Genre Roman autobiographique Pays d origine Russie Lieu de parution Paris Éditeur Gallimard Collection Blanche Date de parution 1983 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Sarraute — Nathalie Sarraute (* 18. Juli 1900 in Iwanowo, Russland; † 19. Oktober 1999 in Paris) war eine französische Schriftstellerin mit russischen Wurzeln. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Kindheit und jüngere Jahre 2 Die Anfänge als Autorin …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Sarraute — Nathalie Sarraute Nathalie Sarraute, née Natalyia (Natacha) Tcherniak à Ivanovo, en Russie, le 18 juillet 1900, et décédée à Paris le 19 octobre 1999, est une écrivaine française d origine russe. Elle est la mère de Claude… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • SARRAUTE (Cherniak), NATHALIE — (1900–1999), French novelist. Born in Ivanova Vosnesensk, Russia, into an assimilated Jewish family, Nathalie Sarraute was taken to France at the age of two. She practiced as a lawyer until the Nazi occupation in 1940, when she joined the French… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • SARRAUTE (N.) — Si l’on peut faire remonter au recueil de L’Ère du soupçon , paru en 1956, le rayonnement de l’œuvre de Nathalie Sarraute, l’une des plus neuves et des plus marquantes de notre époque, c’est parce que s’y trouve alors abordée pour la première… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Nathalie — is a female given name. It is one popular variant of the name Natalie, found in many languages but especially common in French and Russian speaking countries. The name is derived from the Latin Dies Natalis , meaning Natal Day or birthday in… …   Wikipedia

  • Nathalie Dubey — est une metteur en scène et actrice, né le 8 mai 1974 à Genève en Suisse. Elle enseigne la diction et le théâtre au Cycle d Orientation de Genève. Sommaire 1 Enseignement 1.1 Filmographie …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”