Marie Lenéru (June 2, 1875 – September 23, 1918) was a French playwright and diarist. Lenéru became deaf and partially blind after contracting measles as a child. She was able to continue her education with the help of her mother, and in the 1910s and 1920s she wrote several plays that were performed in Paris, notably ''Les Affranchis''.

Biography

Marie Lenéru was born in 1875 in Brest, France. Her family lived on

rue de Siam The ''rue de'' Siam (or ''Siam'' Street, br, Straed Siam) is the main arterial street of Brest, a port city in Brittany, France. Its name comes from the arrival of three ambassadors led by Kosa Pan, sent by the King of Siam on the 29 June 1686 ...

. Her father Alfred Lenéru (1843–1876) was a naval lieutenant, a knight of the Legion of Honour, and a 1863 graduate of the École navale. He died when Marie was only 10 months old. The son of Parisian hoteliers, Alfred had married Marie Dauriac, the daughter of Rear Adm. Alexandre Dauriac and Augustine Hollard, in Brest in 1872. Other naval officers in Marie Lenéru's family included her great-grandfather Capt. Alexandre Dauriac and her uncles Commissioner General of the Navy Charles Dauriac and Capt. François Dauriac. She had one brother, Lionel Dauriac (1847–1923), who attended the École normale supérieure and became a philosophy professor and knight in the Legion of Honour. In May 1887, after having

measles Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...

, Marie Lenéru became deaf and blind. She was 11 years old. Her mother worked to continue her education, using only her sense of touch. She eventually regained some of her eyesight, enabling her to write and read under a magnifying glass, but her deafness persisted. She died in 1918 in Lorient, during the Spanish flu pandemic. Lenéru is perhaps best known as the subject of research by

Suzanne Lavaud __NOTOC__ Suzanne Lavaud (August 8, 1903 – January 14, 1996) was a French librarian. The first deaf person in France to obtain a Doctor of Letters, she is best known for her analysis of the writing of Marie Lenéru. Lavaud was born in Puy-e ...

, the first deaf person to obtain a doctor of letters degree in France.

Work

In 1908, Lenéru submitted a short story, titled
La Vivante
', to a literary competition organized by the newspaper '' Le Journal''. Her victory in that competition marked her first success as a writer, drawing the attention of members of the French literary scene of the period including

Catulle Mendès Catulle Mendès (22 May 1841 – 8 February 1909) was a French poet and man of letters. Early life and career Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, Mendès was born in Bordeaux. After childhood and adolescence in Toulouse, he arrived in Paris in 185 ...

Fernand Gregh Fernand Gregh (14 October 1873, Paris – 5 January 1960, Paris) was a French poet and literary critic. He was accepted in the Académie française in 1953. British composer Eva Ruth Spalding Eva Ruth Spalding (December 19, 1883 - March 1969) ...

, and

Rachilde Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (11 February 1860 – 4 April 1953). Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on t ...

Playwright

She wrote her first play,
Les Affranchis
', in 1908, and sent it to Mendès, who became a significant supporter of her work until his death in 1909. The play won a 1,000 franc prize as an unpublished work, then was published by

Hachette Hachette may refer to: * Hachette (surname) * Hachette (publisher), a French publisher, the imprint of Lagardère Publishing ** Hachette Book Group, the American subsidiary ** Hachette Distribution Services, the distribution arm See also * Hachett ...

in 1910, but it went three years without being performed. Gregh wrote a preface for the 1910 printing, noting that Mendès would have done so had he not died the year prior. Eventually the theater director André Antoine decided to stage the play at the Odéon for the 1910–1911 season. In 1914, the

Académie Française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

awarded her the

Prix Émile Augier The Prix Émile Augier is a literary prize bestowed by the Académie française, with a silver medal from the Academy. It is an annual award that was first given sporadically from the late 19th century until 1961. It was reestablished in 1994 as a ...

for ''Less Affranchis''. She was the first woman to receive the award. After Lenéru's death, the play was republished by Georges Crès in 1926 and performed at the Comédie-Française in 1927. With the success of ''Les Affranchis'', several other plays written by Lenéru were staged in Paris: ''Le Redoutable'' in 1912, at the Odéon; ''La Triomphatrice'' in 1917, at the Comédie-Française; and ''La Paix'' in 1920, also at the Odéon. She also left several pieces that were not produced: ''La Maison sur le roc'', ''Le Bonheur des autres'', ''Les Lutteurs'', ''Le Mahdi''. These works were criticized by some as cold and intellectual, often focusing on couples in conflict over religion, family, or charity.

Historian and diarist

In addition to her theatrical output, Lenéru also compiled research on significant historical figures, including
study
of Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, a chapter of which was published in the ''Mercure de France'' under the pseudonym "Antoine Morsain." She also wrote
Le Cas de Miss Helen Keller
', a look into the life and work of her deaf-blind contemporary Helen Keller. On her death, Lenéru left behind a diary, kept from 1893 until just before her death in 1918. In it, she stoically confides her sufferings and expresses an appetite for beauty and inner perfection that torments her. She describes her gradual loss of religious faith, which she replaced with a sort of pagan serenity and passion for life, as she finds fulfillment in writing. The diary was published by Georges Crès in 1922, in two volumes with a preface by

François de Curel François () is a French language, French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis (given name), Francis. People with the given name * Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of ...

. It was rereleased in 1945 by Grasset with a preface by Fernande Dauriac, and again in 2007 by , with the first years of the diary removed.

References

External links

Marie Lenéru
on Wikisource (in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Leneru, Marie 1875 births 1918 deaths French women dramatists and playwrights French women writers French diarists Deafblind people French writers with disabilities French deaf people Writers from Brittany Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in France French blind people