Gabrielle Wittkop (née Ménardeau; 27 May 1920 – 22 December 2002) was a French writer and translator.

Life and career

Gabrielle Wittkop was born on 27 May 1920 in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

. During the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

of Paris, she met a German

deserter Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission (a pass, liberty or leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave (AWOL ), which ...

, Justus Wittkop, whom she hid from the Nazis. He was homosexual and twenty years older than her, but they married in a union she called an “intellectual alliance.” In 1946, after the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she moved with him to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

where she would stay for the rest of her life. Her first book on the German writer

E.T.A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...

was published in German in 1966. Her first novel, a

transgressive Transgressive may mean: *Transgressive art, a name given to art forms that violate perceived boundaries *Transgressive fiction, a modern style in literature *Transgressive Records, a United Kingdom-based independent record label *Transgressive (l ...

erotic drama about a

necrophiliac Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is sexual attraction towards or a sexual act involving Cadaver, corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization (WHO) ...

antique dealer, ''Le Nécrophile'' ('' The Necrophiliac'', 1972), was published in 1972 by Régine Desforges when she was 52. She wrote several highly regarded novels and travelogues, as well as translating works by

Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blueger, ...

Uwe Johnson Uwe or UWE may refer to * Uwe (given name) * University of the West of England, Bristol * UML-based web engineering * University Würzburg's Experimental miniaturized satellites for space research UWE-1 and UWE-2 * Uwe - Wreck in Blankenese Blank ...

Wolfgang Hildesheimer Wolfgang Hildesheimer (9 December 1916 – 21 August 1991) was a German author who incorporated the Theatre of the Absurd. He originally trained as an artist, before turning to writing. Biography Hildesheimer was born of Jewish parents in Hambu ...

and

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...

into French. She also contributed to the art pages of the ''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...

''. Her husband committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

in 1986 after he was diagnosed with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

and she wrote an account of it in ''Hemlock'' (1988). In 2002, she herself committed suicide in Frankfurt at the age of 82, after she was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

. Although popular in France and Germany, Wittkop's works were not widely available in English until recent years. ''The Necrophiliac'' was translated in a Canadian edition by Don Bapst in 2011, and in a Danish edition by Christina Ytzen in 2018. English translations of ''Les Départs exemplaires'' ''(Exemplary Departures,'' 1995'')'' and ''Sérénissime Assassinat'' (''Murder Most Serene'', 2001) were published by Wakefield Press in 2015.

English translations

* '' The Necrophiliac'', published by ECW Press. * ''Exemplary Departures'', published by Wakefield Press. * ''Murder Most Serene'', published by Wakefield Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittkop, Gabrielle 1920 births 2002 suicides 20th-century French novelists 20th-century French translators 20th-century French women writers Suicides in Germany Writers from Nantes Writers from Frankfurt