Françoise Sagan (1935–2004,) pseudonym of Françoise Delphine Quoirez, was a French novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. She rose to fame with her first novel Bonjour Tristesse (1954.) Her novels examined the transitory nature of love as experienced in brief liaisons of wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois characters. Her life mirrored the indulgent world of her characters.
Born in Cajarc, Lot department, Sagan was educated at a convent in Paris and private schools. At the age of 18, she wrote, in only four weeks, the bestselling Bonjour Tristesse (1954; 1955; filmed 1958,) followed by Un Certain Sourire (1956; A Certain Smile, 1956; filmed 1958,) both strikingly direct testaments of affluent adolescence, written with an excellent economy of style.
Nearly all Sagan central characters are young women involved sexually with older, world-weary men or, less often, middle-aged women and their young lovers. Irony creeps into her third novel, Dans un mois, dons un an (1957; Those Without Shadows, 1957,) and moral consciousness occupies her later novels, such as Aimez-vous Brahms? (1959; 1960; filmed as Goodbye Again, 1961) and La Chamade (1966; 1966.)
Sagan’s later works had a mixed critical reception; these include the plays Château en Suède (1960, ‘Castle in Sweden’) and Un piano dans l’herbe (1970, ‘A Piano on the Grass’) and the novels La Femme fardée (1981; The Painted Lady, 1983,) Un orage immobile (1983; The Still Storm, 1984,) and Un chagrin de passage (1994; A Fleeting Sorrow, 1995.) A memoir, Derrière l’épaule (‘Over My Shoulder,’) appeared in 1998. Her collected works were published in 1993.
New York University’s Judith Graves Miller wrote the biography Françoise Sagan (1988.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Francoise Sagan
One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Laughter
Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing
To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Jealousy, Defects
I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness,
That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Romance
There can never be enough said of the virtues, dangers, the power of a shared laugh.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Laughter
Art must take reality by surprise.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Reality
Of course, the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Books, Literature
Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Girls, Love
It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the “fronts” people assume before one another’s eyes, and the “front” a writer puts on the face of reality.
—Francoise Sagan
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
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