Zoé Oldenbourg
Zoé Oldenbourg | |
---|---|
Born | (1916-03-31)31 March 1916 Petrograd, Russia |
Died | 8 November 2002(2002-11-08) (aged 86) |
Occupation | Writer, historian |
Nationality | French |
Genre | Middle Ages, History of France, Crusades, Cathars |
Zoé Oldenbourg (Russian: Зоя Сергеевна Ольденбург, romanized: Zoya Sergeyevna Oldenburg; 31 March 1916[1] – 8 November 2002)[2] was a Russian-born French popular historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars.
Life
She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.[3] Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.
With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England[4] and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.
She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argile et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.[5]
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948[6] and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.[7]
Work
She combined a high level of scholarship with a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. Her first novel, The World is Not Enough, offered a panoramic view of the twelfth century. Her second, The Cornerstone, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to writing about the Middle Ages.[8]
Awards
She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre angulaire.
Works
Fiction
- Argile et cendres (1946), published in English as The World is Not Enough (translated by Willard A. Trask).
- La Pierre angulaire (1953), published in English as The Corner-stone (translated by Edward Hyams).
- Réveillés de la vie (1956), published in English as The Awakened (translated by Edward Hyams).
- Les Irréductibles (1958), published in English as The Chains of Love (translated by Michael Bullock).
- Les Brûlés (1960), published in English as Destiny of Fire (translated by Peter Green).
- Les Cités charnelles, ou L'Histoire de Roger de Montbrun (1961), published in English as Cities of the Flesh, or The Story of Roger de Montbrun (translated by Anne Carter).
- Catherine de Russie (1966), published in English as Catherine the Great (translated by Anne Carter).
- La Joie des pauvres (1970), published in English as The Heirs of the Kingdom (translated by Anne Carter).
- La Joie-souffrance (1980).
- Le Procès du rêve (1982).
- Les Amours égarées (1987).
- Déguisements (1989), short stories.
Non-fiction
- Le Bûcher de Montségur, 16 mars 1244 (1959), published in English as Massacre at Montségur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade (translated by Peter Green).
- Les Croisades (1965), published in English as The Crusades (translated by Anne Carter).
- Saint Bernard (1970), includes a selection of texts on Saint Bernard by Abélard, Pierre le Vénérable, Geoffroi de Clairvaux, Bérenger de Poitiers and Bossuet.
- L'Épopée des cathédrales (1972).
- Que vous a donc fait Israël ? (1974).
- Visages d'un autoportrait (1977), autobiography.
- Que nous est Hécube ?, ou Un plaidoyer pour l'humain (1984).
Plays
- L'Évêque et la vieille dame, ou La Belle-mère de Peytavi Borsier, pièce en dix tableaux et un prologue (1983).
- Aliénor, pièce en quatre tableaux (1992).
References
- ^ Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century: O to Z, Volume 3 (F. Ungar, 1971: ISBN 0-8044-3094-2), p. 11.
- ^ Histoires littéraires: Revue trimestrielle consacrée à la littérature française des XIXème et XXème siècles 4/13-14 (2003): 124.
- ^ Christiane P. Makward and Madeleine Cottenet-Hage, Dictionnaire littéraire des femmes de langue française (KARTHALA Editions, 1996: ISBN 2-86537-676-1), p. 448.
- ^ Dictionnaire littéraire... October 2010
- ^ Lucille Frackman Becker, Twentieth-Century French Women Novelists (Twayne Publishers, 1989: ISBN 0-8057-8251-6), p. 55.
- ^ Cf. Wilson, p.936
- ^ European Biographical Directory, vol. 2 (Editions Database, 1991), p. 1627.
- ^ Oldenbourg, Zoé (1966). The Crusades. New York, N.Y: Random House. pp. the book jacket.
Further reading
- Steinberg, Theodore L., "The Use and Abuse of Medieval History: Four Contemporary Novelists and the First Crusade", Studies in Medievalism, II.1 (Fall 1982), pp. 77–93.
- Wilson, Katharina M., (editor), An Encyclopedia of continental women writers, New York : Garland Pub., 1991. ISBN 0-8240-8547-7. Cf. entry for Zoé Oldenbourg, Volume 1, pp.935–937.
External links
- Photograph of Zoé Oldenbourg at Babelio
- 1953 Press photograph of Zoé Oldenbourg
- v
- t
- e
- 1904 Myriam Harry
- 1905 Romain Rolland
- 1906 André Corthis
- 1907 Colette Yver
- 1908 Édouard Estaunié
- 1909 Edmond Jaloux
- 1910 Marguerite Audoux
- 1911 Louis de Robert
- 1912 Jacques Morel
- 1913 Camille Marbo
- 1914
- 1915
- 1916
- 1917 Maurice Larrouy
- 1918 Henri Bachelin
- 1919 Roland Dorgelès
- 1920 Edmond Gojon
- 1921 Raymond Escholier
- 1922 Jacques de Lacretelle
- 1923 Jeanne Galzy
- 1924 Charles Derennes
- 1925 Joseph Delteil
- 1926 Charles Silvestre
- 1927 Marie Le Franc
- 1928 Dominique Dunois
- 1929 Georges Bernanos
- 1930 Marc Chadourne
- 1931 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 1932 Ramon Fernandez [fr]
- 1933 Geneviève Fauconnier
- 1934 Robert Francis
- 1935 Claude Silve
- 1936 Louise Hervieu
- 1937 Raymonde Vincent
- 1938 Félix de Chazournes
- 1939 Paul Vialar
- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944 Éditions de Minuit (publisher)
- 1945 Anne-Marie Monnet
- 1946 Michel Robida
- 1947 Gabrielle Roy
- 1948 Emmanuel Roblès
- 1949 Maria Le Hardouin
- 1950 Serge Groussard
- 1951 Anne de Tourville
- 1952 Dominique Rolin
- 1953 Zoé Oldenbourg
- 1954 Gabriel Veraldi
- 1955 André Dhôtel
- 1956 François-Régis Bastide
- 1957 Christian Mégret
- 1958 Françoise Mallet-Joris
- 1959 Bernard Privat
- 1960 Louise Bellocq
- 1961 Henri Thomas
- 1962 Yves Berger
- 1963 Roger Vrigny
- 1964 Jean Blanzat
- 1965 Robert Pinget
- 1966 Irène Monesi
- 1967 Claire Etcherelli
- 1968 Marguerite Yourcenar
- 1969 Jorge Semprún
- 1970 François Nourissier
- 1971 Angelo Rinaldi
- 1972 Roger Grenier
- 1973 Michel Dard
- 1974 René-Victor Pilhes
- 1975 Claude Faraggi
- 1976 Marie-Louise Haumont
- 1977 Régis Debray
- 1978 François Sonkin
- 1979 Pierre Moinot
- 1980 Jocelyne François
- 1981 Catherine Hermary-Vieille
- 1982 Anne Hébert
- 1983 Florence Delay
- 1984 Bertrand Visage
- 1985 Hector Bianciotti
- 1986 René Belletto
- 1987 Alain Absire
- 1988 Alexandre Jardin
- 1989 Sylvie Germain
- 1990 Pierrette Fleutiaux
- 1991 Paula Jacques
- 1992 Anne-Marie Garat
- 1993 Marc Lambron
- 1994 Olivier Rolin
- 1995 Emmanuel Carrère
- 1996 Geneviève Brisac
- 1997 Dominique Noguez
- 1998 François Cheng
- 1999 Maryline Desbiolles
- 2000 Camille Laurens
- 2001 Marie NDiaye
- 2002 Chantal Thomas
- 2003 Dai Sijie
- 2004 Jean-Paul Dubois
- 2005 Régis Jauffret
- 2006 Nancy Huston
- 2007 Éric Fottorino
- 2007 Gwenaëlle Aubry
- 2008 Jean-Louis Fournier
- 2010 Patrick Lapeyre
- 2011 Simon Liberati
- 2012 Patrick Deville
- 2013 Léonora Miano
- 2014 Yanick Lahens
- 2015 Christophe Boltanski
- 2016 Marcus Malte
- 2017 Philippe Jaenada
- 2018 Philippe Lançon
- 2019 Sylvain Prudhomme
- 2020 Serge Joncour
- 2021 Clara Dupont-Monod
- 2022 Claudie Hunzinger [fr]