The bright scandalous biography of the great French writer is full of love affairs, parties, burning life and money, as well as books that made a splash in literature.

The future star of romantic prose was born on June 21, 1935 in Cajar, France. On the same day with a loved one, whose works will be read in adolescence. Sagan's parents are the Quare couple, this is the real name of the writer.

The head of the family is a wealthy industrialist, Francoise's mother was happy to do household chores and shone at social evenings organized by her. In addition to Francoise, the couple had two more children, with whom the future star of the pen was sincerely and tenderly friends.

From childhood, the girl loved reading - it became a real passion. She always surpassed her peers in intellect, curiosity and quickness of mind knew no bounds. But at the same time, the warlike spirit and defiance played a cruel joke in the prim ascetic order of instruction adopted in the private schools that the young rebel attended. Parents treated disobedience condescendingly, considering behavior as a manifestation of personality.

In 1953, an ambitious young lady enters the philological faculty of the Sorbonne, however, having failed the exam in English language, an unlucky student left the walls of the educational institution. However, for Francoise it was always more interesting to communicate with the bohemian elite in cafes and restaurants than boring studies in stuffy classrooms. As her whole life will show, boredom became the main enemy and phobia of the writer, from which she tried to hide.

Literature

The young writer quickly burst into the prim world of French literature with the scandalous in its frankness and non-standard characters of the characters in the novel "Hello, sadness!". In 1954, an 18-year-old girl brought to the office of the experienced and dexterous publisher René Juillard a manuscript about a cunning and treacherous young nymphet who smashes the love of her own father and stepmother to smithereens. The story was filled with details of romantic encounters and intimacy between a man and a girl.

Writer Francoise Sagan

For the literature of that time, such a story became exceptional, scandalous, but was a wild success the very next day after its release on the shelves. Then, at the urgent request of her parents, who considered their surname too famous for the covers of dubious books, Francoise took the pseudonym Sagan. Adored, the young intellectual named herself after the heroine of In Search of Lost Time.

Having received the first colossal fee, the girl was confused and turned to her father with the question of what to do with such a fabulous amount. The head of the family replied that money was ruinous for his daughter and should be spent immediately. Actually, the writer adhered to this philosophy throughout her life.

Soaring rapidly to the pinnacle of success, Sagan was worried that in the absence of a second book, as brilliant as the debut, she would be called a one-day butterfly and forgotten with contempt. In 1956, the second novel, A Vague Smile, was published, which received no less success.

According to Sagan, she herself considered her work imperfect, and herself a lazy person. The need for money forced the writer to take up the pen. She never failed publishers and handed over the work clearly on time.

In total, Sagan wrote about twenty novels. All works are filled with love, sadness and loneliness. Clear, concise description of actions, accurate psychological portraits heroes are the hallmarks of Sagan's prose.

Of particular popularity were such novels as "Do you love Brahms?" (1959), "A Little Sun in cold water"(1969), "Crumpled Bed" (1977).

In addition to novels, the great Frenchwoman wrote plays and short stories. In 1987, the biography written by Sagan saw the light, which the writer adored. And in 1980, an open letter was published by Sagan Sartre, where she enthusiastically calls the idol the most honest and intelligent writer of the generation.

Francoise Sagan's books have been filmed, translated into hundreds of languages ​​and are still reprinted in millions of copies.

Personal life

In addition to the overwhelming success in creativity, Sagan's biography surprised with richness, recklessness and brightness. The writer's fees allowed her to lead a wild life on a grand scale, which the eternal rebel did. She threw grandiose parties at which alcohol flowed like water, took out a crowd of friends abroad, paid for general parties in restaurants.

Sagan's lifelong passion was gambling and speed. In the casino, a carefree spender squandered fortunes. And the passion for cars almost led Francoise to death. At the age of 22, a car turned over at great speed under the control of a playgirl. Doctors miraculously saved her, literally picking up a racing lover piece by piece. After a difficult rehabilitation, when the writer had to take morphine to get rid of the pain, Sagan became addicted to drugs.

Waking up in the hospital, the girl saw her old friend, publisher Guy Scheller, who was 20 years older than her, near the bed. The man offered the writer to become his wife in order, as he clarified, to save her. And the eccentric Sagan unexpectedly agreed. However, the marriage was not destined to last long. After a year of living together, the woman realized that a measured marriage was not for her, frightened by everyday life, she, without explaining a word, packed her bag and left her husband.

The second attempt to start a family was made by the writer in 1962, when Sagan married Bob Westhoff, a former Air Force pilot. Leaving the army, the man moved to Montmartre, tried to build a career as a fashion model, called himself a sculptor. As the son of the couple, Dani Westhoff, who was born in the same 1962, said in an interview, his father could not do anything but burn life with his wife. He called himself a sculptor only because in his rented apartment there was a kiln for firing clay.

Soon this marriage broke up, although after the divorce, the former spouses lived peacefully under the same roof for another seven years. The son of the great writer shares that, of course, Sagan was not a mother who darns socks for children, but she always treated her son warmly and caringly.

Francoise was credited with many novels, not only with men, but also with women. The writer's son confirms his mother's bisexuality and recalls that long time one of her favorite women - Peggy Roche - lived in the same house with Francoise. She is even buried in the same grave with the writer, however, without mentioning her name on the monument.

But no one gives confirmation of the affair with the President of France. Sagan herself, like her son, said that it was a sincere warm friendship. An influential friend pulled the carefree Sagan out of trouble more than once. And there were many of them - accusations of possession and use of drugs, some mysterious scam in which the writer handed over a letter from businessman Andre Gelfi with a proposal to produce oil in Uzbekistan to the president.

When they were elected president, a tax audit raided the house of a star woman, as a result of which tax evasion was revealed. The writer was heavily fined. As a result, the star of romantic prose was completely ruined.

Death

The lifestyle that Francoise Sagan led could not but affect her health. The body is tired of constant doses of alcohol and drugs. On September 24, 2004, in the clinic of the town of Honfleur, the great writer died of a pulmonary embolism.

Creativity and the fate of the writer are still interesting to fans and the townsfolk. In 2012, the book "Loneliness and Love" was published, which collected interviews, archival photos, correspondence of the great Sagan.

Bibliography

• 1954 - "Hello, sadness!"
• 1956 - "A vague smile"
• 1959 - Do you love Brahms?
• 1965 - "Signal for Surrender"
• 1969 - "A little sun in cold water"
• 1972 - "Bruises on the soul"
• 1977 - Crumpled Bed
• 1980 - "stray"
• 1981 - "Woman in makeup"
• 1985 - "And the cup overflowed"
• 1991 - "Detour"
• 1996 - "In a foggy mirror"

Francoise Sagan is a representative of modern women's prose, the founder of a new type of artistic thinking. With her work, this French writer led to the emergence of the newest stereotype of female behavior, the priorities of which were the need for self-improvement and self-realization in various spheres of life.

The writer borrowed her pseudonym from the novel by the famous French writer Marcel Proust “In Search of Lost Time”, one of the heroines of which was the Duchess Saganska.

Francoise Sagan (Cuarez) was born on June 21, 1935 in the family of a wealthy provincial industrialist in the city of Kazhark. She was educated in the best religious educational institutions in France. She studied at the Sorbonne, but left the university for the sake of writing. The first novel "Hello, sadness!" (1954) made her infamous at 19. It was indicative that early and loud fame did not overshadow her mind. F. Sagan came to her father and calmly asked what she should do with the 1.5 million francs received for the publication of the novel. He advised: "Spend them immediately, because money is a big problem for you." She did just that. Travels and yachts, an unsuccessful marriage to the then famous publisher Te Schiller (they soon broke up, he was twenty years older than her), the birth of a son (1962), several more attempts to arrange family life, attraction to gambling. At 22, Francoise miraculously survived a major car accident.

Sagan's success seemed incomprehensible to many. Life among the representatives of Bohemia, of which she was a member, the writer successfully combined with hard creative work.

One after another, novels came out from under her pen that brought her worldwide recognition: “A Strange Smile” (1956), “Do you love Brahms?” (1959), "Wonderful Clouds" (1961), "Signal of Surrender" (1965), "A Drop of Sun in Cold Water" (1969).

By the period of the 70s, F. Sagan tried to almost not remind herself, but then the situation changed: she issued a lyrical novel “Bruises on the Soul” (1972), in which she directly addressed the reader, talking about her successes and failures, about morals "bohemians" and her literary preferences.

Subsequently, the Memoirs written in a similar manner and the book Best Wishes (1984) were published. their content confirmed that F. Sagan is not at all like her heroines. She treated life with genuine interest, thought a lot about social progress and the obstacles that met in its path. Sagan warned of the dangers of unbridled and unrestrained consumerism when culture was bought and sold. The writer did not hide her political sympathies: she openly helped President Mitterrand in his election campaign.

F. Sagan managed to save his work from agganzhovannosti. She defiantly refused literary prizes, honorary titles and membership in the Academy.

Among the works written by her during the 80s and 90s, it is worth noting the following: “Lost Profile” (1974), “Spread Bed” (1977), “Sleeping Dog” (1970), “An Immovable Thunderstorm” (1983), Tired of Enduring (1985), Watery Blood (1987).

Her novel, a biography about Sarah Bernhardt (1987), written in the form of letters to the actress, caused a significant resonance in Europe.

Until 1991, the writer published 22 novels, 2 collections of short stories, 7 plays, 3 books of essays. In all these works, she tried to express her thoughts, views on modern world, customs and literature. It was felt that she was oppressed by the dullness and spiritual squalor of the "society of residence", her description of the bohemian or elite environment was due to the rejection of the philistinism way of life, which acquired global proportions.

F. Sagan was also known as a public figure and publicist. She violated the problems of the moral and spiritual crisis among young people, defended human rights.

The Parisian apartment of the writer became the most famous literary salon in France, which was visited not only by writers, but also by diplomats and prime ministers.

The most famous representative of female prose has always repeated that she loves speed and excitement. However, these hobbies led to negative consequences: partial alcohol addiction, and subsequently - and addiction to drugs.

In 1995, F. Sagan was conditionally convicted and prosecuted for the use and possession of cocaine. she was threatened with a more serious punishment if the then President of France F. Mitterrand, who highly appreciated the literary talent of the writer, had not intervened in the matter. In February 2002, she was again given a suspended sentence, this time for tax evasion.

In the last years of her life, Sagan lived in Honfleur, a town in northern France, with her son and a close friend.

The writer died in a local hospital on September 24, 2004 from cardiopulmonary failure.

"Hello, sadness!" The plot of F. Sagan's first novel was surprisingly simple. Sagan, this "charming little beast" (according to F. Mauriac), through the mouth of her heroine Cecile, told about the rest on the seashore during the holidays in the company of her father, his mistress and friend of the late mother. Without embarrassment, she spoke about bodily pleasures, her amorous relationship with a neighbor, which did not necessarily have to have a logical continuation. Unexpectedly, this idyll was broken by the mother's friend Anna, whose character was distinguished by integrity and depth. Fearing that her father would marry her, Cecile, in the end, was the cause of her death. It is clear that after returning to Paris, both the girl and the father continued to live their former carefree life. Despite the banality of the plot, the story that the writer told had a tangible undertone of sadness, which also appeared in the title of the book. The world of carnal pleasures entered into Sagan's novel of hidden depth.

The novel "Hello, sadness!" became a bestseller, subsequently more than a million copies were issued in various languages ​​and in different countries peace. He immediately grew into a kind of symbol, a sign of the times, and the image of the main character personified the soothsayers of the era of easy morals. He seemed to have absorbed the specific fates of the writer's contemporaries - that's why the term "generation of Françoise Sagan" appeared. In one of his articles. Urden wrote that this novel “reflected the mood and position of the younger generation, which began to live after the huge shock that the world experienced during the war years, when the old ideas about Good and Evil, old moral values, old prohibitions and taboos perished.”

"Do you love Brahms?" This is another "fever of the heart" story where the heroine must solve a well-known problem in literature: to make a choice between a young, ardent, but inexperienced lover and a calm, balanced middle-aged man. Sagan's work was reminiscent of A. Zhid's novel "Pastoral Symphony", in which the author talked about the impossibility of embodying high spiritual and physical qualities in one person.

Paul is the main character of the novel - a thirty-nine-year-old woman, a master of residential decor, who over time began to understand herself and her life in a new way. She did not have a family, children, she felt her loneliness. Her lover Roger Ferte, a forty-year-old owner of a transport agency, a man with an "irrepressible appetite for life," could never give her what she dreamed of - the warmth of family comfort, the joy of learning the truths of life with children, etc. He was the man who knew how to bring pleasure and self-confidence to a woman, but this feeling lasted only a moment.

After six years of periodic meetings, “of which the concept of freedom became the law,” Paul felt even more alone. An empty apartment, unrumpled sheets, gloomy peace have become attributes of her life and silent companions. The heroine suffered from the fact that no one needed her, no one felt the need for her. “She was left alone, again alone this night ... Lying on the bed, she mechanically extended her hand, wanting to touch her warm shoulder, she held her breath, as if she was afraid to frighten off someone's sleep. Husband or child. It doesn’t matter whose, as long as her living warmth helps them sleep and wake up. But no one really wants it."

Almost by chance, while fulfilling another order to decorate the house of a wealthy sixty-year-old American woman Van den Besh, dreaming of improving her financial situation with this work, the heroine met the twenty-five-year-old son of this lady, Simon. Handsome and charming, the young man immediately attracted the attention of a woman. This was facilitated by the exceptional features of his character - nobility, good breeding, tact. “He embodied the type of young man who evoked the motherly feelings of a woman of her age,” Paul had such an opinion about the hero after the first meeting.

Simon was also impressed by the meeting with the woman decorator. Being a typical embodiment of the "golden youth", performing the duties assigned to him as an assistant to a lawyer - an old acquaintance of Ms. Van den Besch, he constantly struggled with laziness and routine. Among his peers, Simon was distinguished by the fact that he preferred older women, with their own established views on life. It was such a woman (he did not yet know her name) that the young man saw in the one who carried out the order of his mother.

Simon was looking for a meeting with the one that filled his mind. Intoxicated, he broke the generally accepted rhythm of Roger and Paul's dinner, and the next morning, in order to atone for his guilt, he gave the woman an unforgettable breakfast in a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne. Although each of them had his own life experience, his own life values, however, at that moment they were united by a feeling of complete satisfaction with life. They joked and talked about the inevitability of loneliness, laughed and felt sad, and were, no doubt, delighted with each other.

Feeling attracted to Simon, Paul continued to love Roger. For her, he remained both the embodiment of vice and perfection. She had long been accustomed to forgiving his fleeting infatuations with other women, but she could not come to terms with his complete absence from her life.

She accepted Simon's advances. she, as a woman, was pleased to feel her need. The heroine was pleased that she saw the enthusiastic eyes of a young man in love with her, but she did not feel completely happy. Allowing Simon to love her, she constantly recalled her meetings with Roger. The heroine was not sure if she had ever loved someone other than herself, loved and continued to love Roger. She was prompted to such thoughts by Simon's invitation to attend a concert at which Brahms' music was to be played. A seemingly ordinary question stirred up a wave of memories in the heroine's soul and made her think about her life. "Do you love Brahms? Does she love at least someone other than herself and her existence? ... Perhaps she only knew that she loved Roger. Just well-learned truths."

The captious judgments of the surrounding people on the age difference between Paul and Simon, the dominance of "established, generally accepted" truths over those that still require their proof, became the reason for the renewal of the relationship between the heroine and her former lover Roger.

The leading motive of the novel was the motive of loneliness. This is the most terrible sentence that a person could receive. The main character of the work was afraid of this state, because she was well acquainted with it: “she was disgusted with these Sundays of single women: a book that you read in bed, trying to pull off reading, crowded cinemas, perhaps a cocktail or lunch in some company, and at home, upon returning, an unmade bed and a feeling as if not a minute had been lived since morning.

Choosing a title for her novel, the writer was probably guided by the age-old question that sooner or later every person asks himself in private - she loves her life, her loved ones, loved ones. It is the question "Do you love Brahms?" it seemed doomed in advance to the only correct answer: how can one not love something that has long become a classic, what has already become an “established truth”? How can one question those feelings, those relationships that have long been inscribed in the life of each of us by an invisible hand?

Created in the late 60s, the novel "A Drop of Sun in Cold Water" developed a theme characteristic of F. Sagan's early work, although on a different, deeper level.

The heroine of Natalia Silveren's book is able to love and make another person happy, but life brought her together with her ordinary husband, journalist Lantier. He is unable to understand the impulses of a woman who was ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of love. Therefore, the story of their meetings ended with the death of the heroine.

Philosophical works;

Penetration into the depths of female psychology;

Narrators are self-confident women with a well-formed life position;

The image of the complex relationship between a man and a woman, due to the difference in worldview guidelines and the originality of the worldview;

The heroines are sensual natures, dreamy and romantic, capable of feeling the subtlest movements of life.

She herself often referred to herself as an "old dragonfly" and "playgirl" and said that she lived like a stuntman. She liked to shock the audience and violate the prohibitions. The famous French writer, author of the novels “Hello, sadness” and “A little sun in cold water” Francoise Sagan often heard accusations against her of excessive lightness of novels, that she writes as fast as she drives cars. She had to pay for her love of speed, as well as for her frivolity.

Françoise Coiret was born in 1935 in the family of a wealthy industrialist and from childhood she knew no refusal. In an elite Catholic boarding school, she did not even think of studying - instead, she constantly protested against boring seminars: for example, once she hung a bust of Moliere in the middle of the classroom, throwing a noose around his neck. Only one semester Francoise lasted at the Faculty of Philology of the Sorbonne - and after the first session was expelled. But she re-read the entire home library, admiring Proust, Sartre and Camus.

At the age of 19, Francoise chose the pseudonym Sagan from Proust's work and, under a new name, released her first novel, Hello Sadness, which instantly gained immense popularity. No one could believe that the author was a young girl. Fame and huge fees fell upon her - within a year, the novel, translated into 30 languages, reached a circulation of 2 million copies. France was gripped by "Saganomania".

Françoise did not know what to do with her unexpected wealth. “I'm afraid that at your age, wealth can turn into a big disaster. Therefore, spend everything as soon as possible,” her father advised her. And she began to overspend, which became one of her favorite activities in life. “Yes, I love money, which for me has always been a good servant and a bad master. They are always present in my books, in my life and in my conversations, ”the writer admitted. At the same time, she generously donated large sums to charitable foundations. And when the money ran out, she went to the casino. Once she won 8 million francs and bought a house in Normandy with them.

Françoise Sagan loved to drive at top speed, and one day she had an accident and landed in the hospital. Then her friend, a 40-year-old publishing director, told her: "If you survive, I will marry you so that you will never do stupid things again." They really got married, but marriage did not save her from “nonsense”. They lived together for only two years, after which the girl got bored and left her husband.

For the second time, she married the same playboy and party lover like herself. This marriage lasted 7 years, but even the birth of a son did not change the nature of the "protracted accident", as the writer called herself. “Family life is nothing but asparagus and vinegar. This dish is not my cuisine, ”Sagan told reporters after the divorce and promised that she would never marry again. She kept her word.

The writer liked to shock the audience. Rumors about her novels did not subside, while she was credited with connections with both men and women. With one of them, Peggy Roche, she lived under the same roof for a long time, and when she died, she ordered to be buried in the Saganov family vault. After the accident, doctors prescribed painkillers for her, and since then Françoise has become addicted to drugs and alcohol. In 1995, she was at the center of a high-profile scandal: during a search, cocaine was found in her house. At the trial, she was found guilty of possession and distribution of drugs and sentenced to a suspended sentence and a fine.

When Françoise was offered to become a member of the French Academy of Arts, she refused, explaining this as follows: “Firstly, it doesn’t suit me green color academic uniform, and secondly, there is not a single writer whom I would admire!

Most of all she was afraid of oblivion and poverty. This is exactly what happened to her in the last years of her life. Once she received a large commission for mediating a deal: knowing about her close relationship with Mitterrand, she was asked to arrange a meeting with the president. She did not pay taxes on this amount, so she again received a suspended sentence and pledged to pay a million francs. All her property was described, and the accounts were frozen. She had to mortgage the apartment and sell the mansion, but this did not deter her from going to the casino.

At 69, Francoise Sagan died in poverty and loneliness. “Happiness is fleeting and false, only sadness is eternal,” said the writer in her declining years. Many critics called her "an impudent who got into literature by accident", but she took her rightful place in it:

ID 10522
Books: 45

Sagan Françoise

All the works of Francoise Sagan are about love, loneliness, dissatisfaction with life; they are distinguished by the clarity of the narrative manner and the accuracy of the psychological drawing. Sagan's writing career began very early - at the age of 19 she publishes a story Since then, the life of Francoise Sagan has been closely intertwined with literature. Her pseudonym, which forever crossed out her real name from French history, is taken from the book of the writer-compatriot adored by Françoise, Marcel Proust. And Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom she was a gentle and reverent friend, had a great influence on the formation of the philosophy of her whole life. Despite her not very attractive appearance - thin, big-nosed, with disproportionately large transparent eyes on a small face with a sharp many novels, several times tried to establish family life and even gave birth to a son. And she continued to write like a man possessed. One after another, her novels came out, all written in the same shockingly detached manner, but with strict observance of the classical traditions of writing novels. small, it seemed

Francoise was brought up in a wealthy family, received an excellent education. After graduating from school, Francoise entered the philological faculty of the Sorbonne - University of Paris. But there was no time to study. How nice it was to sit in small cozy Parisian cafes, get acquainted and meet with representatives of the Parisian bohemia: artists, artists, poets; fall in love, argue, get drunk, and write your first story at night.

Her first novel, Hello, Sadness, written in 1954, appeared suddenly, like a downpour from heaven. Reading Paris seethed: it cannot be that it was written by 18 summer girl! The most incredible assumptions about authorship were made up. But no deceit - it was she, Francoise Coiret, having failed the bachelor's exam, took up the pen. The book needed a surname symbol. The young lady borrowed a pseudonym from the great Proust - Princess Sagan lived in his novel. It suited her just fine. The daughter of wealthy parents, in love with Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Eluard, went with her head and heart into writing. The title of the novel was suggested to her by lines from a poem by Paul Eluard:

hello sadness,
Love of supple bodies
The inevitability of love.

Readers were delighted with the lightness and ease of the story, from her heroine Cecile, who begins to know people, love, betrayal, disappointments. In this novel, it suddenly became clear to everyone that, in addition to the kinship of souls and bodies, there is also the joy of silence, glances, gestures, even laughter and restrained anger. To meet such closeness in a person is an incredible happiness. The novel was translated into 30 languages ​​of the world, and then filmed. A collapse of opinions fell on the girl, very different, and a huge fee - 1.5 million francs. Father advised: "Immediately spend them, because money is a big problem for you." The young novelist bought a used Jaguar XK 140 - "Magnificent, and I was proud of it," Francoise admitted.

This work was followed by other novels, short stories, plays, novels "Do you love Brahms?" (1959), A Little Sun in Cold Water (1969), Lost Profile (1974), The Painted Lady (1981), War Tired (1985) and others

Sagan wrote 22 novels, several plays. She loved her readers, even those who attacked her with criticism, who were dissatisfied with her novels, and never defended herself - she considered their criticism fair.

François Mauriac was struck by her brilliant prose, cheerfully exclaimed: "A charming little monster!". About her novel On a Leash, academician Poirot Delpeche wrote that for the first time since the days of Balzac and Zola, a book has appeared in which the power of money in the sphere of feelings is shown with such frankness and artistic power.

Françoise Sagan married twice. In 1958 for the forty-year-old publisher Guy Schueller, and then in 1962 for the young American Bob Westhoff, a pilot who changed the steering wheel of an airplane to become a model. She has a son, Dani Westhoff, from her second marriage.
Françoise Sagan died on September 24, 2004 from a pulmonary embolism in a hospital in Honfleur, Normandy.