François Billetdoux (7 September 1927 – 26 November 1991) was a French dramatic author and
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...
.
Biography
His works describe the world with a fierce humor of a somewhat
burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. style, which sometimes turns into
black humor
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...
.
Billetdoux was born in and died in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. He was President of the
Société des gens de lettres
Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA.
Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...
in 1972.
His daughter,
Raphaële Billetdoux is also a writer.
In 1989 he was awarded the
Grand Prix du Théâtre de l’Académie Française.
Plays
*'' À la nuit la nuit'' (1955)
**''Night in the night'', Jelm Mountain Publishers, 1980,
* ''Le comportement des époux Bredburry'' (1955)
*
Tchin-Tchin (1959) translated into English by
Willis Hall 1960 retitled Chin-Chin
* ''Va donc chez Thorpe'' (1961)
* ''Comment va le monde, Môssieu ? Il tourne, Môssieu'' (1964)
* ''Il faut passer par les nuages'' (1966)
* ''Silence, l'arbre remue encore'' (1967)
* ''Femmes Parallèles'' (1970)
* ''Rintru pa trou tar, hin'' (1971)
* ''Les Veuves'' (1972)
* ''La Nostalgie, camarade'' (1974)
* ''Ai-je dit que je suis bossu'' (1980)
* ''Réveille-toi, Philadelphie'' (1988)
Novels
* ''L'Animal'' (1955)
* ''Royal garden blues'' (1957)
* ''Brouillon d'un bourgeois'' (1961) (translated into English by Ralph Manheim as "A Man and His Master," published by Secker & Warburg in 1963)
References
20th-century French non-fiction writers
20th-century French male writers
1927 births
1991 deaths
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