Marguerite Duras

Born

in Gia-Dinh, Viet Nam

April 04, 1914

Died

March 03, 1996

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Cinema

Influences

Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre

edit data

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras (pronounced [maʀgəʁit dyˈʁas] in French) (April 4, 1914 – March 3, 1996) was a French writer and film director.

She was born at Gia-Dinh, near Saigon, French Indochina (now Vietnam), after her parents responded to a campaign by the French government encouraging people to work in the colony.

Marguerite's father fell ill soon after their arrival, and returned to France, where he died. After his death, her mother, a teacher, remained in Indochina with her three children. The family lived in relative poverty after a bad investment in an isolated property and area of farmland in Cambodia(tête de pisse). The difficult life that the family experienced during this period was highly influential on Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras (pronounced [maʀgəʁit dyˈʁas] in French) (April 4, 1914 – March 3, 1996) was a French writer and film director.

She was born at Gia-Dinh, near Saigon, French Indochina (now Vietnam), after her parents responded to a campaign by the French government encouraging people to work in the colony.

Marguerite's father fell ill soon after their arrival, and returned to France, where he died. After his death, her mother, a teacher, remained in Indochina with her three children. The family lived in relative poverty after a bad investment in an isolated property and area of farmland in Cambodia(tête de pisse). The difficult life that the family experienced during this period was highly influential on Marguerite's later work.

At 17, Marguerite went to France, her parents' native country, where she began studying for a degree in mathematics. This she soon abandoned to concentrate on political sciences, and then law. After completing her studies, she became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party) and was engaged in the resistance.

In 1943 she changed her surname to "Duras" for Duras, the name of a village in the Lot-et-Garonne département, where her father's house was located.

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 was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour, which was directed by Alain Resnais.

Duras's 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 ...more

Combine Editions
Marguerite Duras’s books

Average rating: 3.74 · 57,544 ratings · 4,162 reviews · 161 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Lover by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray (Translator) , Maxine Hong Kingston (Introduction) 3.75 avg rating — 28,814 ratings — published 1984 — 166 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras, Caridad Martínez (Translator) 3.92 avg rating — 3,324 ratings — published 1959 — 43 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Moderato cantabile 3.52 avg rating — 3,104 ratings — published 1958 — 73 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras, Richard Seever (Translator) 3.68 avg rating — 2,622 ratings — published 1964 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The North China Lover by Marguerite Duras, Leigh Hafrey (Translator) 3.88 avg rating — 1,986 ratings — published 1991 — 39 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Malady of Death by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray (Translator) 3.86 avg rating — 1,660 ratings — published 1982 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blue Eyes, Black Hair by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray (Translator) 3.51 avg rating — 1,561 ratings — published 1986 — 33 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The War by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray (Translator) , قلسم روبین (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 1,762 ratings — published 1985 — 56 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Writing 3.73 avg rating — 1,286 ratings — published 1993 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Sea Wall 3.78 avg rating — 1,540 ratings — published 1950 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Marguerite Duras…

Series by Marguerite Duras

The Lover (2 books)
by

Marguerite Duras,

Leigh Hafrey (Translator)

3.76 avg rating — 30,799 ratings

Quotes by Marguerite Duras

“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.”
― Marguerite Duras

tags: mothers

3191 likes

“Very early in my life it was too late.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

593 likes

“...as long as nothing happens between them, the memory is cursed with what hasn't happened.”
― Marguerite Duras, Blue Eyes, Black Hair

tags: lust, waiting

512 likes

See all Marguerite Duras's quotes »

Polls

Book to film...Which novel would you like to read as a group in November? If you are voting, please make note you are committing to reading and discussing your choice, if it wins here.

Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy

3 votes, 42.9%

Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier

2 votes, 28.6%

Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk

2 votes, 28.6%

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene

0 votes, 0.0%

The Lover (The Lover, #1) by Marguerite Duras

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras

0 votes, 0.0%

Germinal (Les Rougon-Macquart, #13) by Émile Zola

Germinal, by Émile Zola

0 votes, 0.0%

7 total votes

3 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Wire: Dennis Lehane on crime fiction and literature	1	751	Dec 03, 2008 01:13PM
The Book Challenge: Kuutar's challenges 2009	26	144	Dec 30, 2009 08:45AM
Glens Falls (NY) ...: What are U reading these days? (Part Five) (begun 3/12/09)	1049	475	Dec 31, 2009 10:39PM
Reading with Style: FA10 RwS Completed Tasks	927	361	Dec 01, 2010 06:41AM
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2011 Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS)	2883	1004	May 31, 2011 09:01PM
The Seasonal Read...: 15.8 - Up In The AIr	29	110	Jun 22, 2011 07:24AM
The Next Best Boo...: Pepita - frequent flyer	109	395	Sep 11, 2011 04:07AM
The Next Best Boo...: Robyn - Frequent Flyer	50	96	Sep 23, 2011 05:43AM

More…