On December 17, 1987, it disappeared

Marguerite Yourcenar, pseudonym Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour, at the age of 84. An important figure in 20th-century French literature, Marguerite Yourcenar was the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française in 1980. “But the hieratic solemnity of the ordained woman of letterssays producer Cécile Térouanne at the start of the programme, never replaced the wanderer he was since childhood“. A traveler with passion, like his father, “Marguerite Yourcenar was leaving for India when she had a stroke in November 1987”reports her biographer Josyane Savigneau, who met the novelist at her home in America.

“While she was working on Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar wrote in Greek in a little notebook, to get herself in shape”

Apart from the passion to travel, another aspect of the life of a literary woman is raised during this program which consists of readings and interviews. Academic Michèle Sarde and archaeologist Jean-Pierre Corteggiani report many anecdotes about Marguerite Yourcenar’s daily life, as well as her relationship with her friend Grace Frick (disappeared in 1979).

• A life, a masterpiece – Marguerite Yourcenar (first broadcast: 09/10/1997)
• By Cécile Térouanne
• With Josyane Savigneau (journalist) and Jean-Pierre Corteggiani (Egyptologist, University of Michèle Sarde)
• With archives, the voice of Marguerite Yourcenar
• Directed by Jean-Claude Loiseau
• A life, a masterpiece – Marguerite Yourcenar (first broadcast: 09/10/1997)
• Web edition: Documentation by Sylvain Alzial from Radio France
• Archives of Ina-Radio France

Find the entire archive program

“Marguerite Yourcenar, a modern woman with an ancient heart” proposed by Mathias Le Gargasson.