Sagan, Françoise

(1935- )

   writer

   Born Françoise Quoirez in the village of Cajarc, Lot, Françoise sagan (she took as her nom de plume the name of a character in one of marcel proust's works), whose elegant comedies and glamorous lifestyle have made her a best-selling author and celebrity, had an early success with her first novel Bonjour Tristesse (1954), a bittersweet story of the loves of its 17-year-old protagonist, Cécile. The work won Sagan the prix des Critiques and enthralled the postwar generation. sagan continued its themes in her next work, Un certain Sourire (1956), and her style and theme of a fictional upper-middle-class world and its sexual life and hypocrisies are apparent in works that followed: Dans un Mois, dans un an (1957) and especially Aimez-vous Brahms (1959). Among other writings that cross between popular and serious literature and between fiction and autobiography, written in her characteristic detached style, are La Chamade (1965), Le Lit défuit (1977), and La Femme fardée (1981). At the same time, sagan has also written for the stage (Château en Suède, 1960; Bonheur, impair et passé, 1964; and Un piano dans l'herbe, 1970), and has published her memoirs (Avec mon meilleur souvenir, 1985). A number of her works have been adapted to the screen.