Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on 4 April 1914, inGia Định,[1]Cochinchina,French Indochina (nowVietnam). Her parents, Marie (née Legrand, 1877–1956) and Henri Donnadieu (1872–1921), were teachers from France who likely had met at Gia Định High School.[2][3] They both had previous marriages. Marguerite had two brothers: Pierre, the older, and the younger Paul.
Duras' father fell ill and he returned to France, where he died in 1921, when Duras was seven years old. Between 1922 and 1924, the family lived in France while her mother was on administrative leave. They then moved back toFrench Indochina when she was posted toPhnom Penh followed byVĩnh Long andSa Đéc. The family struggled financially, and her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland inPrey Nob,[2] a story which was fictionalized inUn barrage contre le Pacifique (The Sea Wall).
In 1931, when she was 17, Duras and her family moved to France where she successfully passed the first part of the baccalaureate with the choice of Vietnamese as a foreign language, as she spoke it fluently. Duras returned toSaigon in late 1932 where her mother found a teaching post. There, Marguerite continued her education at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat and completed the second part of the baccalaureate, specializing in philosophy.
In autumn 1933, Duras moved to Paris, graduating with a degree in public law in 1936. At the same time, she took classes in mathematics. She continued her education, earning adiplôme d'études supérieures (DES) in public law and, later, in political economy.[4] After finishing her studies in 1937, she found employment with the French government at the Ministry of the Colonies. In 1939, she married the writerRobert Antelme, whom she had met during her studies.[2]
During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for theVichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated ade facto book-censorship system. She then became an active member of thePCF (theFrench Communist Party)[2] and a member of theFrench Resistance as a part of a small group that also includedFrançois Mitterrand, who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of hers.[2] Duras' husband,Antelme, was deported toBuchenwald in 1944[5] for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Duras, just 38 kg, or 84 pounds). She nursed him back to health, but they divorced once he recovered.
In 1943, when publishing her first novel, she began to use the surname Duras, after the town that her father came from,Duras, Lot-et-Garonne.[6]
In 1950, her mother returned to France from Indochina, wealthy from property investments and from the boarding school she had run.[3]
Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and works of short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical workL'Amant (1984), translated into English asThe Lover, which describes her youthful affair with aChinese-Vietnamese man. It won thePrix Goncourt in 1984.[7] The story of her adolescence also appears in three other books:The Sea Wall,Eden Cinema andThe North China Lover. Afilm version ofThe Lover, produced byClaude Berri and directed byJean-Jacques Annaud, was released in 1992. Duras's novelThe Sea Wall was first adapted into the 1958 filmThis Angry Age byRené Clément, and again in 2008 by Cambodian directorRithy Panh asThe Sea Wall.[citation needed]
Other major works includeModerato Cantabile (1958), which was the basis of the 1960 filmSeven Days... Seven Nights;Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein (1964); and her playIndia Song, which Duras herself later directed asa film in 1975. She was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French filmHiroshima mon amour, which was directed byAlain Resnais.[8] Duras's early novels were fairly conventional in form, and were criticized for their "romanticism" by fellow writerRaymond Queneau; however, withModerato Cantabile, she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what was not said. She was associated with thenouveau roman Frenchliterary movement, although she did not belong definitively to any one group. She was noted for her command of dialogue.[9]
In 1971, Duras signed theManifesto of the 343, thereby publicly announcing that she had had an abortion.[10]
According to literature and film scholars Madeleine Cottenet-Hage andRobert P. Kolker, Duras' provocative cinema between 1973 and 1983 was concerned with a single "ideal" image, at the same time both "an absolute vacant image and an absolute meaningful image," while also focused on the verbal text. They said her films purposely lacked realistic representation, such as divorcing image from sound and using space symbolically.[11]
Towards the end of her life, Duras published a short, 54-page autobiographical book as a goodbye to her readers and family. The last entry was written on 1 August 1995 and read "I think it is all over. That my life is finished. I am no longer anything. I have become an appalling sight. I am falling apart. Come quickly. I no longer have a mouth, no longer a face".[13] Duras died at her home in Paris on 3 March 1996, aged 81.[14]
During the later stages of World War II, she endured separation from her husband, Robert Antelme, following his imprisonment inBuchenwald. It was during his captivity that she wroteLa Douleur. Believing that fidelity was an absurd notion, Duras began an affair with writerDionys Mascolo while still married to Antelme, creating aménage à trois, she later fathered her son, Jean Mascolo.[15]
Duras had a wide circle of influential friends, ranging from writers and artists to intellectuals and even criminals. Her friend, the psychoanalystJacques Lacan, once remarked, "Marguerite Duras turns out to know what I teach without me," in praise of her novelLe Ravissement de Lol V. Stein.[16][17]
During the final two decades of her life, Duras experienced significant health problems. In 1980, she was hospitalized for the first time due to a combination of alcohol and tranquilizers.[15] She also underwent detoxification to address her alcohol addiction. After being hospitalized again in October 1988, she fell into a coma that lasted until June 1989.[18]
In parallel with her health issues during the 1980s, Duras began a relationship withYann Andréa, a homosexual actor.[15] Yann Andréa helped Duras through her health difficulties. Duras would detail these interactions and companionship in her final book,Yann Andréa Steiner.[19]
Duras' health continued to decline in the 1990s. She died on 3 March 1996.[18]
Samuel Beckett regarded first hearing the 1957 radio adaptation ofLe Square as "overwhelmingly moving" and a significant moment in his life.[20][6]
The 2021 French mini-seriesUne affaire française (akaA French Case) depicts Duras (played by a chain-smokingDominique Blanc) in a damning light, as she insinuates herself into the investigation of a1984 child murder case by accusing the mother of the crime.[21]
The account by Yann Andréa of his relationship with Duras was brought to the screen in a 2022Claire Simon film entitledVous ne désirez que moi (a phrase directed at Andréa by Duras) withSwann Arlaud as Andréa andEmmanuelle Devos as journalist Michèle Manceaux,[22] subsequently issued on DVD by Blaq Out.
Des journées entières dans les arbres (Gallimard, 1954).Whole Days in the Trees, trans. Anita Barrows (1984). Includes three other novellas: "Le Boa", "Madame Dodin", "Les Chantiers"
Le Square (Gallimard, 1955).The Square, trans. Sonia Pitt-Rivers and Irina Morduch (1959)
L'Après-midi de M. Andesmas (Gallimard, 1962).The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas, trans. Anne Borchardt and Barbara Bray (1964)
Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein (Gallimard, 1964).The Ravishing of Lol Stein, trans. Richard Seaver (1964); also asThe Rapture of Lol V. Stein, trans. Eileen Ellenbogen (1967)
Le Vice-Consul (Gallimard, 1965).The Vice-Consul, trans. Eileen Ellenborgener (1968)
L'Amante anglaise (Gallimard, 1967).L'Amante anglaise, trans. Barbara Bray (1968)
Détruire, dit-elle (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1969).Destroy, She Said, trans. Barbara Bray (1970)
Abahn Sabana David (Gallimard, 1970).Abahn Sabana David, trans. Kazim Ali (2016)
Le Camion, suivi deEntretien avec Michelle Porte (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1977).The Darkroom, trans. Alta Ifland and Eireene Nealand (Contra Mundum Press, 2021)
Le Navire Night, suivi deCesarée, les Mains négatives, Aurélia Steiner (Mercure de France, 1979).The Ship "Night", trans. Susan Dwyer
^Alex Hughes, "Erotic Writing" in Hughes and Keith Reader,Encyclopedia of contemporary French culture, (pp. 187–88). London, Routledge, 1998,ISBN0415131863
Harvey, Robert; Alazet, Bernard; Volat, Hélène (2009).Les Écrits de Marguerite Duras: Bibliographie des oeuvres et de la critique, 1940–2006. Paris: IMEC. p. 530.
Selous, Trista (1988),The Other Woman: Feminism and Feminity in the Work of Marguerite Duras, New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN9780300042870.
