Irène Frain | |
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 Irène Frain in September 2009 | |
| Born | Irène Le Pohon (1950-05-22)22 May 1950 (age 74) Lorient, Morbihan, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, journalist and historian |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Novel, essay |
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Irène Frain (née Le Pohon; born 22 May 1950 inLorient, Morbihan) is a French novelist, journalist, and historian. She is a founding member of theWomen's Forum for the Economy and Society.
Irene Frain was born into a very close but destitute family. Her first book was a history of the golden age of maritime Brittany titledQuand les Bretons peuplaient les mers (When the Bretons inhabited the seas) published in 1979. She studied at the lycée Dupuy-de-Lôme de Lorient,[1] where she obtained a degree inClassics in 1972. From 1972 to 1978 she taught classics at different high schools inLagny-sur-Marne andChampigny-sur-Marne and finallyJacques Decour in Paris. From 1975 to 1981 she taughtLatin andLatin literature at theUniversité de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.[2]
She dedicated her first novel,The Nabob (1982), toRené Madec. The novel's plot was about a small Bretoncabin boy who became amogul in India. This epic tale of 18th century India was a success, and her subsequent novels honed further her talents: an acute sense of intrigue, a sometimes dry and at other times flamboyant style, attempts at empathy with her characters, some humor, and an abundant imagination.
Some of her novels areModern Style (1984),Désirs (Desire) (1986),Secret de famille (Secret Family) (1989),Histoire de Lou (History of Lou) (1990),Devi (1992),L’homme fatal (Fatal man) (1995),Les hommes, etc. (Men, etc.) (2003),Au Royaume des Femmes (The Kingdom of Women) (2007), andLes Naufragés de l’île Tromelin (The Castaways of Tromelin island) (2009).
Frain regularly participates in actions in favor of theTibetan cause.[3] She is an ambassador for the association Aide à l'enfance tibétaine (Aid to Tibetan Children)[4] and La Voix de l'enfant (The Voice of the child). She is also a member of the honor committee of l'ADMD (Association for the Right to Die with Dignity).[5]
Two deep currents have been noted in Frain's work: a passion for issues concerning women's status and a marked predilection for the Orient—the two often overlapping. Her book,Beauvoir in love (2012), based on a survey in the United States by the University of Columbus, Ohio, shed light onSimone Beauvoir's misunderstood passion for the American writerNelson Algren. She orchestrated courses on Beauvoir and illuminated some of Beauvoir's psychological features hitherto ignored, often retouching the biased and even negative portrait that Beauvoir made of her American lover after their separation. Frain also stressed the role of Algren in the genesis ofThe Second Sex.
A great traveler, Irene attributes her predilection for Asia to her birth inLorient, a historic port of theEast India Company, formerly spelled L'Orient. Several of her travel stories demonstrate this predilection:Quai des Indes (East India Dock) (1992) which recounts her investigation of the famous Indian bandit womanPhoolan Devi,La vallée des hommes perdus (The Valley of Lost Men) (1995) in collaboration with cartoonistAndré Juillard,Pour que refleurisse le monde (To flourish the world) (2002) withJetsun Pema, the sister of the 14thDalai Lama, andAu Royaume des femmes (The Kingdom of Women) (2006) andÀ la recherche du Royaume (In search of the Kingdom) (2007) with photos by François Frain which she wrote after travelling to China andTibet in the footsteps of the famous American explorerJoseph Rock.
Her investigative passion is also evident in novels such asLa Guirlande de Julie (The Garland of Julie) (1991) about the birth of the language of flowers and amorous civility in France,L'Inimitable (The Inimitable) (1998) a historical biography ofCleopatra,Gandhi, la liberté en marche (Gandhi, freedom at work) (2007), andLa Forêt des 29 (The Forest of 29) (2011), chronicling the journey of GuruJamboji, the founder of theBishnoïs community. Irene admiredJulien Gracq and devoted a short essay to him in 2001 titledJulien Gracq et la Bretagne (Gracq and Brittany).
Her enthusiasm for the art of living is also noted in, for example,Le bonheur de faire l'amour dans sa cuisine et vice-versa (The joy of making love in the kitchen and vice versa) (2004). She is also known for a strong taste for tales, as inContes du Cheval bleu les jours de grand vent (Tales of the Blue Horse on windy days) (1980), republished and edited under the titleLe Navire de l'homme triste et autres contes marins (The Ship of sad men and other marine tales) (2010),La Fée Chocolat (1995), andLe Roi des Chats (The King of Cats) (1996).
Frain recounted part of her childhood inBrittany inLa côte d'amour (The coast of love) (2001), with photos by Christian Renaut, and also inLa maison de la source (Home of the source) (2000). InLa Forêt des 29 (2011), she investigated the journey ofJamboji, the founder of the fifteenth century Bishnoï community inIndia, staging it as a docudrama. She also reconstructed the immolationmassacre that took place in 1730 atKhejarli nearJodhpur when 363 men, women and children gave their lives to protect the trees in a forest belonging to the Bishnoï peasant Amrita Devi.
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