Margins
Marguerite Duras profile picture
Marguerite Duras
Author · 56 books

Marguerite Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on 4 April 1914, in Gia Định, Cochinchina, French Indochina (now Vietnam). Her parents, Marie (née Legrand, 1877-1956) and Henri Donnadieu (1872-1921), were teachers from France who likely had met at Gia Định High School. They had both had previous marriages. Marguerite had two older siblings: Pierre, the eldest, and Paul. Henri Donnadieu fell ill, returned to France, and then died in 1921. Between 1922 and 1924, the surviving family lived in France while her mother was on administrative leave. They then moved back to French Indochina when she was posted to Phnom Penh followed by Vĩnh Long and Sa Đéc. The family struggled financially and her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland in Prey Nob,[2] a story which was fictionalized in Un Barrage contre le Pacifique. In 1931, when she was 17, Duras and her family moved to France and she completed her baccalaureate. Duras returned to Saigon again with Paul and her mother in 1932 and completed her second baccalaureate, leaving Pierre in France. In 1933, Duras embarked alone for Paris to study law and mathematics. She soon abandoned this to concentrate on political science.[2] After completing her studies in 1938, she worked for the French government in the Ministry of the Colonies. In 1939, she married the writer Robert Antelme, whom she had met during her studies. During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for the Vichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated a de facto book-censorship system. She also became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party) and a member of the French Resistance as a part of a small group that also included François Mitterrand, who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of Duras. In 1943, when publishing her first novel, she began to use the surname Duras, after the town that her father came from, Duras. In 1950, her mother returned to France, wealthy from property investments and from the boarding school she had run. She is the author of a great many novels, plays, films, interviews, and short narratives, including her best-selling, apparently autobiographical work L'Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover. This text won the Goncourt prize in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in three other forms: The Sea Wall, Eden Cinema and The North China Lover. A film version of The Lover, produced by Claude Berri, was released to great success in 1992. Other major works include Moderato Cantabile, also made into a film of the same name, Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein, and her film India Song. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour, which was directed by Alain Resnais. Duras' early novels were fairly conventional in form (their 'romanticism' was criticised by fellow writer Raymond Queneau); however, with Moderato Cantabile she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what was not said. She was associated with the Nouveau roman French literary movement, although did not definitively belong to any group. Her films are also experimental in form, most eschewing synch sound, using voice over to allude to, rather than tell, a story over images whose relation to what is said may be more-or-less tangential. Marguerite's adult life was somewhat difficult, despite her success as a writer, and she was known for her periods of alcoholism. She died in Paris, aged 82 from throat cancer and is interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. Her tomb is marked simply 'MD'. From wikipedia

Series

Books

Le Monde extérieur book cover

Le Monde extérieur

Outside 2

1993

Madame Dodin book cover

Madame Dodin

2021

Wartime Writings book cover

Wartime Writings

1943-1949

2006

Yann Andrea Steiner book cover

Yann Andrea Steiner

1992

Savannah Bay book cover

Savannah Bay

1983

The Suspended Passion book cover

The Suspended Passion

Interviews

1989

Eden cinéma book cover

Eden cinéma

1977

La Pute de la côte normande book cover

La Pute de la côte normande

1986

L'Amour book cover

L'Amour

1972

Marguerite Duras book cover

Marguerite Duras

1976

Writing book cover

Writing

1993

The Man Sitting in the Corridor book cover

The Man Sitting in the Corridor

1980

Moderato cantabile book cover

Moderato cantabile

1958

لاموزیکا و لاموزیکای دوم book cover

لاموزیکا و لاموزیکای دوم

2005

Le square book cover

Le square

1955

Four Novels By Marguerite Duras - The Square - Moderato Cantabile - 10 book cover

Four Novels By Marguerite Duras - The Square - Moderato Cantabile - 10

30 on a Saturday Night - The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

1965

L'Amante anglaise book cover

L'Amante anglaise

1967

The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities book cover

The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities

1985

Yves Saint Laurent book cover

Yves Saint Laurent

Icons of Fashion Design

1988

نوشتن، همین و تمام، ابان، ساوانا، داوید book cover

نوشتن، همین و تمام، ابان، ساوانا، داوید

2012

L'Été 80 book cover

L'Été 80

1981

Hiroshima, Mon Amour And Last Year At Marienbad book cover

Hiroshima, Mon Amour And Last Year At Marienbad

Two Screenplays

2025

Abahn Sabana David book cover

Abahn Sabana David

1970

Duras/Godard Dialogues Hardcover Marguerite, Godard, Jean-Luc Duras book cover

Duras/Godard Dialogues Hardcover Marguerite, Godard, Jean-Luc Duras

2014

The Malady of Death book cover

The Malady of Death

1982

Outside book cover

Outside

1981

No More book cover

No More

1995

Destroy, She Said book cover

Destroy, She Said

1969

Hiroshima mon amour book cover

Hiroshima mon amour

1959

Leurs yeux se rencontrèrent book cover

Leurs yeux se rencontrèrent

2003

Me & Other Writing book cover

Me & Other Writing

2019

The Easy Life book cover

The Easy Life

1944

Les petits chevaux de Tarquinia book cover

Les petits chevaux de Tarquinia

1953

Agatha - Franzosisch-Deutsch book cover

Agatha - Franzosisch-Deutsch

1981

Des journées entières dans les arbres book cover

Des journées entières dans les arbres

1954

The Sailor from Gibraltar book cover

The Sailor from Gibraltar

1952

10:30 on a Summer Night book cover

10:30 on a Summer Night

1960

The Impudent Ones book cover

The Impudent Ones

1943

L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas book cover

L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas

1962

The North China Lover book cover

The North China Lover

1991

The Lover book cover

The Lover

1984

Hiroshima, Mon Amour book cover

Hiroshima, Mon Amour

1966

Un barrage contre le Pacifique book cover

Un barrage contre le Pacifique

1950

Blue Eyes, Black Hair book cover

Blue Eyes, Black Hair

1986

Summer Rain book cover

Summer Rain

1990

Woman to Woman book cover

Woman to Woman

1974

The Ravishing of Lol Stein book cover

The Ravishing of Lol Stein

1964

Kamion book cover

Kamion

1977

Practicalities book cover

Practicalities

1987

India Song book cover

India Song

1965

Emily L. book cover

Emily L.

1987

The War book cover

The War

1985

The Vice-Consul book cover

The Vice-Consul

1965

At læse book cover

At læse

1993

L'Homme Atlantique book cover

L'Homme Atlantique

1982

Echte vrouwen beminnen anders book cover

Echte vrouwen beminnen anders

2000

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