Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between
The definitive biography of a leading twentieth-century French writer

A leading exponent of the nouveau roman, Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999) was also one of France's most cosmopolitan literary figures, and her life was bound up with the intellectual and political ferment of twentieth-century Europe. Ann Jefferson's Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between is the authoritative biography of this major writer.

Sarraute's life spanned a century and a continent. Born in tsarist Russia to Jewish parents, she was soon uprooted and brought to the city that became her lifelong home, Paris. This dislocation presaged a life marked by ambiguity and ambivalence. A stepchild in two families, a Russian émigré in Paris, a Jew in bourgeois French society, and a woman in a man’s literary world, Sarraute was educated at Oxford, Berlin, and the Sorbonne. She embarked on a career in law that was ended by the Nazi occupation of France, and she spent much of the war in hiding, under constant threat of exposure. Rising to literary eminence after the Liberation, she was initially associated with the existentialist circle of Beauvoir and Sartre, before becoming the principal theorist and practitioner of the avant-garde French novel of the 1950s and 1960s. Her tireless exploration of the deepest parts of our inner psychological life produced an oeuvre that remains daringly modern and resolutely unclassifiable.

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between explores Sarraute's work and the intellectual, social, and political context from which it emerged. Drawing on newly available archival material and Sarraute's letters, this deeply researched biography is the definitive account of a life lived between countries, families, languages, literary movements, and more.

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Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between
The definitive biography of a leading twentieth-century French writer

A leading exponent of the nouveau roman, Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999) was also one of France's most cosmopolitan literary figures, and her life was bound up with the intellectual and political ferment of twentieth-century Europe. Ann Jefferson's Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between is the authoritative biography of this major writer.

Sarraute's life spanned a century and a continent. Born in tsarist Russia to Jewish parents, she was soon uprooted and brought to the city that became her lifelong home, Paris. This dislocation presaged a life marked by ambiguity and ambivalence. A stepchild in two families, a Russian émigré in Paris, a Jew in bourgeois French society, and a woman in a man’s literary world, Sarraute was educated at Oxford, Berlin, and the Sorbonne. She embarked on a career in law that was ended by the Nazi occupation of France, and she spent much of the war in hiding, under constant threat of exposure. Rising to literary eminence after the Liberation, she was initially associated with the existentialist circle of Beauvoir and Sartre, before becoming the principal theorist and practitioner of the avant-garde French novel of the 1950s and 1960s. Her tireless exploration of the deepest parts of our inner psychological life produced an oeuvre that remains daringly modern and resolutely unclassifiable.

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between explores Sarraute's work and the intellectual, social, and political context from which it emerged. Drawing on newly available archival material and Sarraute's letters, this deeply researched biography is the definitive account of a life lived between countries, families, languages, literary movements, and more.

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Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between

by Ann Jefferson
Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between

by Ann Jefferson

Paperback

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Overview

The definitive biography of a leading twentieth-century French writer

A leading exponent of the nouveau roman, Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999) was also one of France's most cosmopolitan literary figures, and her life was bound up with the intellectual and political ferment of twentieth-century Europe. Ann Jefferson's Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between is the authoritative biography of this major writer.

Sarraute's life spanned a century and a continent. Born in tsarist Russia to Jewish parents, she was soon uprooted and brought to the city that became her lifelong home, Paris. This dislocation presaged a life marked by ambiguity and ambivalence. A stepchild in two families, a Russian émigré in Paris, a Jew in bourgeois French society, and a woman in a man’s literary world, Sarraute was educated at Oxford, Berlin, and the Sorbonne. She embarked on a career in law that was ended by the Nazi occupation of France, and she spent much of the war in hiding, under constant threat of exposure. Rising to literary eminence after the Liberation, she was initially associated with the existentialist circle of Beauvoir and Sartre, before becoming the principal theorist and practitioner of the avant-garde French novel of the 1950s and 1960s. Her tireless exploration of the deepest parts of our inner psychological life produced an oeuvre that remains daringly modern and resolutely unclassifiable.

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between explores Sarraute's work and the intellectual, social, and political context from which it emerged. Drawing on newly available archival material and Sarraute's letters, this deeply researched biography is the definitive account of a life lived between countries, families, languages, literary movements, and more.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691210247
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 05/02/2023
Pages: 448
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ann Jefferson is professor emerita of French at the University of Oxford and the author of several books on French literature and culture, including Genius in France: An Idea and Its Uses (Princeton).

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgements xvii

Between Worlds, 1900-21

Chapter 1 Russian Childhoods, 1900-05 3

Chapter 2 Between Petersburg and Paris, 1905-11 17

Chapter 3 Schooldays, 1912-18 32

Chapter 4 England, 1919-21 44

Chapter 5 Berlin, 1921-22 59

Chapter 6 Pierre Janet's Patient, 1922 67

Tentative Beginnings, 1922-44

Chapter 7 Independence, 1922-25 79

Chapter 8 Raymond 88

Chapter 9 Coming of Age with Modernism, 1923-27 95

Chapter 10 Marriage and Motherhood, 1925-33 102

Chapter 11 The First Tropism, 1932-34 112

Chapter 12 A Pause, 1935-37 119

Chapter 13 Publication, 1938-39 131

Chapter 14 Jewish by Decree, 1939-42 142

Chapter 15 In Hiding, 1942-44 156

Ambivalent Allegiances, 1944-58

Chapter 16 Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1944-47 173

Chapter 17 The Elephant's Child, 1947-49 185

Chapter 18 New Horizons, 1949-53 196

Chapter 19 A Gallimard Author, 1953-56 211

Chapter 20 The Nouveau Roman, 1956-59 218

Golden Fruits, 1959-70

Chapter 21 "One of the Great Novelists of Our Time," 1959-62 235

Chapter 22 Nathalie Abroad, 1959-64 245

Chapter 23 A Reading Public, 1963-66 259

Chapter 24 Friendships 269

Chapter 25 "The Heroine of Post-Stalin Russia," 1960-67 283

Chapter 26 Radio Plays, 1962-72 296

Chapter 27 The Writing Life, 1964-68 304

Chapter 28 Revolution and May 68 311

Chapter 29 Israel, 1969 318

On Her Own Terms, 1970-99

Chapter 30 The End and Afterlife of the Nouveau Roman, 1971-82 329

Chapter 31 Plays on Stage, 1972-88 343

Chapter 32 A Life and a Death, 1983-89 352

Chapter 33 The Last Decade, 1990-99 363

Notes 381

Bibliography 413

Index 417

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Ann Jefferson's biography of Nathalie Sarraute is impeccably researched and elegantly written. The reader turns the final pages with sorrow and regret—both that Sarraute's life is over, and that this marvelous book has come to an end."—Alice Kaplan, author of Looking for "The Stranger": Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic

“In Ann Jefferson, Nathalie Sarraute has found the ideal biographer. Fluent in French and Russian, and an internationally renowned expert on Sarraute’s writing, Jefferson has succeeded in telling the story of Sarraute’s life in an admirably neutral key, in keeping with Sarraute’s own literary principles. Rigorously researched, the book offers startling new information about Sarraute’s harrowing experiences as a persecuted Jew in France during the Occupation. This is the biography of record, indispensable for anyone interested in Sarraute.”—Toril Moi, Duke University

“This first biography of Nathalie Sarraute gives us a rich portrait of the woman behind the avant-garde French novelist. Ann Jefferson, a distinguished critic of Sarraute’s work who knew the author personally, recounts with verve the writer’s family life, her survival during World War II, and her active role in the literary world of postwar Paris. Based on archival sources as well as personal papers and reminiscences provided by Sarraute’s family, this is a must-read for anyone interested in modern French literature.”—Susan Rubin Suleiman, author of The Némirovsky Question: The Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in 20th-Century France

"A magnificent achievement: fascinating, readable, exhaustive. It is the definitive biography this important literary figure deserves."—Elisabeth Ladenson, author of Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from "Madame Bovary" to "Lolita"

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