Marguerite Duras

Renate Gunther (University of Sheffield)
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Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (pseudonym Marguerite Duras; born 4 April 1914; died 3 March 1996), novelist, playwright, poet, film director and journalist, was one of the great pioneers of contemporary literature and cinema. A formidably prolific and, at the same time, deeply enigmatic artist, Duras published over a hundred written texts, from her first novel

Les Impudents

(1943) until her last book

C’est tout

(1995). From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, she also directed eighteen films, for which she herself wrote the scripts. Although her work, inspired largely by her childhood and her later involvement in the political history of post-war France, remains clearly autobiographical, Duras transformed her individual experience into a mythical realm whose archetypal characters…

2540 words

Citation: Gunther, Renate. "Marguerite Duras". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 August 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5690, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5690 Marguerite Duras 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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