Marguerite Yourcenar

Her
intimate companion at the time, a translator named Grace Frick, invited
her to the United States, where she lectured in comparative literature
in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College. She and Frick became lovers
in 1937, and would remain so until Frick's death in 1979

Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour
Born 8 June 1903
Brussels, Belgium
Died    17 December 1987 (aged 84)

This
is the eighty-eight post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

   


Biography

Yourcenar
was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de
Crayencour in Brussels, Belgium to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour, of
French aristocratic descent, and a Belgian mother, Fernande de Cartier
de Marchienne, who died ten days after her birth. She grew up in the
home of her paternal grandmother.

Yourcenar's first novel,
Alexis, was published in 1929. Her intimate companion at the time, a
translator named Grace Frick, invited her to the United States, where
she lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah
Lawrence College. Yourcenar was bisexual and she and Frick became lovers
in 1937, and would remain so until Frick's death in 1979

Marguerite Yourcenar translated Virginia Woolf's The Waves over a 10-month period in 1937.

In
1951 she published, in France, the novel Mémoires d'Hadrien, which she
had been writing with pauses for a decade. The novel was an immediate
success and met with great critical acclaim.

In this novel
Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the
ancient world, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who writes a long letter to
Marcus Aurelius, his successor and adoptive son. The Emperor meditates
on his past, describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for
Antinous, and his philosophy. This novel has become a modern classic, a
standard against which fictional recreations of Antiquity are measured.

Yourcenar
was elected as the first female member of the Académie française, in
1980. One of the respected writers in French language, she published
many novels, essays, and poems, as well as three volumes of memoirs.

Yourcenar
lived much of her life at Petite Plaisance in Northeast Harbor on Mount
Desert Island, Maine. Petite Plaisance is now a museum dedicated to her
memory.

Her fight for animal rights was a very important element
of her life : «Les animaux sont mes amis et je ne mange pas mes amis.» (
Animals are my friends and I do not eat my friends ). She also
considered that " The fight for the protection of the Animal is the same
as the fight for the protection of Man " : «La protection de l'animal,
c'est au fond le même combat que la protection de l'homme.» She has been
a great inspiration to many intellectuals, artists, animal right
activists such as Brigitte Bardot, Frédéric Back, ...



BibliographyLe jardin des chimères (1921)
Alexis ou le traité du vain combat (1929) - translated Alexis (by Walter Kaiser), ISBN 0-374-51906-4
La nouvelle Eurydice (1931)
Pindare (1932)
Denier du rêve (1934, revised 1958–59) - translated A Coin in Nine Hands (by Dori Katz), ISBN 0-552-99120-1
La mort conduit l'attelage (1934)
Feux (prose poem, 1936) - translated Fires (by Dori Katz), ISBN 0-374-51748-7
Nouvelles orientales (short stories, 1938) - translated Oriental Tales, ISBN 1-85290-018-0
Les songes et les sorts (1938)
Le coup de grâce (1939) - translated Coup de Grace (by Grace Frick), ISBN 0-374-51631-6
Mémoires d'Hadrien (1951) - translated Memoirs of Hadrian (by Grace Frick), ISBN 0-14-018194-6
Électre ou La chute des masques (1954)
Les charités d'Alcippe (1956)
Constantin Cavafy (1958)
Sous bénéfice d'inventaire (1962)
Dark Brain of Piranesi: and Other Essays (1984)
Fleuve profond, sombre rivière: les negros spirituals (1964)
L'Œuvre au noir (novel, 1968, Prix Femina 1968) - translated The Abyss, aka Zeno of Bruges (by Grace Frick - 1976)
Yes, Peut-être, Shaga (1969)
Théâtre, 1971
Souvenirs pieux (1974) - translated Dear Departed: A Memoir (by Maria Louise Ascher), ISBN 0-374-52367-3
Archives du Nord (1977) - translated How Many Years: A Memoir (by Maria Louise Ascher)
Le labyrinthe du monde (1974-84)
Mishima ou la vision du vide (essay, 1980) - translated Mishima: A Vision of the Void, ISBN 0-226-96532-5
Anna, soror... (1981)
Comme
l'eau qui coule (1982) translated "Dreams and destinies" and "Two lives
and a dream". Includes "Anna, Soror...", "An Obscure Man" and "A lovely
morning"
Le temps, ce grand sculpteur (1984) - translated That Mighty Sculptor, Time (by Walter Kaiser), ISBN 0-85628-159-X
"La Couronne et la Lyre" (The Crown and the Lyre), by Χατζηνικολής editions (1986)
Quoi? L'Éternité (1988)