Francoise Sagan Biography and List of Works

French novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, whose dispassionate portrayals of bored, amoral middle-class people have been translated into many languages. Sagan published her first novel, Bonjour tristesse (1954), at the age of 19. It was a succes de scandale for its depiction of a young woman breaking up her father's affair.

"Sur ce sentiment inconnu dont l'ennui, la douceur m'obsèdent, j'hésite à apposer le nom, le beau nom grave de tristesse. C'est un sentiment si complet, si égoïste que j'en ai presque honte alors que la tristesse m'a toujours paru honorable. Je ne la connaissais pas, elle, mais l'ennui, le regret, plus rarement le remords. Aujourd'hui, quelque chose se replie sur moi comme une soie, énervante et douce, et me sépare des autres."
(from Bonjour tristesse)

Françoise Sagan was born in the village of Cajarc, in south-western France, into a well-to-do family. She was the third child of Pierre Quoirez, a prosperous industrialist, and Marie (Laubard) Quoirez. At the outbreak of World War II the family moved to the provinces, living mainly in Lyon; Sagan also spent some time in Switzerland. After the liberation of France in 1944 the family returned to Paris. Sagan was educated at convent schools and attended the University of Sorbonne. In 1953 she failed the second-year examination for higher academic degrees and spent several weeks during the summer writing her first novel, Bonjour tristesse. The title of the book came from Paul Eluard. Sagan took her pseudonym from the fictional Princess of Sagan in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. The thin story of Cécile's first love affair was an immediate bestseller, and made its author famous in France and abroad. Sagan travelled in the United States, and met among others the American writer Truman Capote. In 1957 her fondness of fast cars led to an accident in which she almost died. In 1958 Sagan married Guy Schoeller, a publisher. They divorced in 1962, and she married Bob Westhof; an American ceramics designer - this marriage also ended in divorce.

Cécile, the narrator of Bonjour tristesse, is a pampered teenager who spends her summer holidays in a villa in the south of France. She has failed her exams and finds Cyril, a young law student, more interesting than books. Her forty-year-old father, Raymond, is widowed. Anne Larsen, his late wife's friend, ousts his latest mistress Elsa. Anne works in fashion, and has come for a short visit to the villa. "I feared boredom and tranquillity more than anything. In order to achieve serenity, my father and I had to have excitement, and this Anne was not prepared to admit." To provoke her father's jealousy, she asks Cyril and Elsa to pretend to be in love. Cyril wants to marry Cécile, and accepts the plan. Anne is in love with Raymond. For Raymond Elsa represents his lost years, but he sees in the beautiful and sober Anne a perfect wife and mother to Cécile. The plan works, Anne drives recklessly away from the villa, and dies in a car accident. Cécile returns with her father to Paris and leaves Cyril, and her youth behind. The world of the rich and beautiful is hollow, and the carefree existence is lost forever.

Echoes of the novel's melancholic atmosphere - 'Hello Sadness' - can be heard in Simon & Garfunkel's famous song 'The Sound of Silence' (1964). The story was made into a film in 1957, directed by Otto Preminger, starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, and Jean Seberg. It became a huge success in France where it was shot in monochrome for Paris and colour for the Riviera. Preminger later complained that the American critics didn't do it justice. ..." In America the critics said it wasn't French enough, which is very funny."

After the novel Sagan become a spokesperson for disillusioned youth, and bored teenagers. A Certain Smile (1958), her second book, was also a success. It told the story of a student's love affair with a middle-aged man. Sagan's style is classically cool, restrained, and austere, continuing the tradition of the French psychological novel during the decade when noveau roman made its breakthrough. Her minimalist language of polite everyday speech reveals the almost Existential aimlessness of her characters. Sagan once said that for her "writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm... Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters." As in the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Sagan's lonely characters are disappointed in their personal relationships, and try to fill the passage of time with the pursuit of pleasure. Although often classified as entertainment by male critics, her earlier novels in particular deserve more attention according to feminist critics. The confessional tone of Bonjou tristesse has been considered a precursor to writing by women from more recent years.

In the 1960s Sagan turned from novels to plays, proving her talent for writing witty dialogue. Her fist plays, Castle in Sweden (1960) and Violins Sometimes (1961) were only moderately successful. After The Purple Dress of Valentine (1963) Sagan wrote Happiness, Odd and Pass (1964), in which a young army officer wavers between love and his wish to be killed. In The Vanishing Horse (1966) Sagan took up the subject of the amorous conflict between two generations.

Sagan's later novels include Le Garde du coeur (1968), set in Hollywood. In the story a middle-aged woman, Dorothy, takes over the guardianships of a beautiful boy, Lewis. She must choose between her mature lover and the young dropout. At the same time a series of mysterious deaths shock the film circles. A scar on the Soul (1974) is a combination of essay, autobiography, and novel. Un Orage immobile (1983) is set in 1932 in a small country village, and depicts the passionate love story of a beautiful widow, observed by a young notary. In Un Chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow) Sagan follows the thoughts and reactions of a man in his thirties, Paul Cazavel, who learns that he has lung cancer. Paul sees his life and closest relationships, his mistress and former wife, in a new light.

For further reading: Françoise Sagan: Une Conscience de Femme Refoulée by Nathalie Morello (2000); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999, vol. 4); Sagan by J. Lamy (1988); Bonjour Sagan by B. Poirot-Delpech (1988); Françoise Sagan by J. Miller (1988); Françoise Sagan; ou, L'élégance de survivre by P. Vandromme (1977); World Authors 1950-1970, ed. by John Wakeman (1975); Le cas Françoise Sagan by G. Hourdin (1958); Françoise Sagan by G. Mourgue (1958)

Bonjour tristesse, (1954)