Alika Lindbergh (born Monique Dubois, 23 December 1929), commonly known by her former name Monique Watteau, is a Belgian
fantasy fiction
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and dra ...
writer and artist.
Early life
Watteau was born Monique Dubois in Liège on 23 December 1929. Her father was Hubert Dubois, a playwright and poet with ties to Surrealism.
Watteau studied painting and drawing at the Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège, and then went on to the
Royal Conservatory of Liège
Royal Conservatoire of Liège
The Royal Conservatoire of Liège (RCL) (French Conservatoire royal de Liège, Dutch Koninklijk Conservatorium Luik) is one of four conservatories in the French Community of Belgium that offers higher education cour ...
to study theatre. At twenty, she left Belgium for
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...
, where she met the Belgian scientist
Bernard Heuvelmans
Bernard Heuvelmans (10 October 1916 – 22 August 2001) was a Belgian-French scientist, explorer, researcher, and writer probably best known, along with Scottish-American biologist Ivan T. Sanderson, as a founding figure in the pseudoscienc ...
, famous for his work in
cryptozoology
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness ...
. In 1951, she appeared under the name Monique Watteau in
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ''Antigone'', an a ...
's film . She also worked as a photography
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
.
Career
Watteau's first novel, ''La colère végétale'', was published in 1954. Critics praised it as a striking literary debut;
Albert-Marie Schmidt
Albert-Marie Schmidt (10 October 1901 – 8 February 1966) was a French linguist and one of the founding members of the Oulipo
Oulipo (, short for french: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: ''"workshop of potential literat ...
wrote that Watteau had created "a new kind of fantasy" (''un nouveau fantastique''). Watteau was reportedly considered for the
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...
and the
Prix Femina
The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine '' La Vie heureuse'' (today known as '' Femina''). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works writte ...
, but she was removed from the running of the latter prize in 1954 when the jury discovered that she had posed for nude photographs.
Her following novels, ''La nuit aux yeux de bête'' (1956), ''L'ange à fourrure'' (1958), and ''Je suis le ténébreux'' (1962), cemented her reputation as one of the foremost Francophone fantasy writers of the twentieth century. Her work is marked by its sensuality of expression and its
ecological
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
,
Taoist
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao ...
, and Surrealist themes. The writer described Watteau's novels as prime examples of
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
in twentieth-century fantasy.
Her first three novels were written under the name Monique Watteau; her fourth gave her name as Monique-Alika Watteau. After its publication, she abandoned the name Monique altogether, going by Alika Watteau and later Alika Lindbergh.
After publishing four novels, she turned to painting as a career. Her output as a painter includes a notable corpus of cryptozoological art, including her work as the primary illustrator of Bernard Heuvelmans's books. When the cartoonist
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of Tintin'', ...
, researching ''
Tintin in Tibet
''Tintin in Tibet'' (french: Tintin au Tibet, link=no) is the twentieth volume of '' The Adventures of Tintin'', the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was serialised weekly from September 1958 to November 1959 in ''Tintin'' magaz ...
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
activist. In the early 1990s, she was the president of the Cercle national pour la défense de la vie, de la nature, et de l'animal (CNDVNA), a
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
Heuvelmans was Watteau's first husband; they divorced in 1961, but remained friends and collaborators. According to her autobiography, Watteau was romantically involved with actor
Yul Brynner
Yuliy Borisovich Briner (russian: link=no, Юлий Борисович Бринер; July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985), known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was best known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in th ...
from 1961 to 1967. It was after this affair that she changed her first name to Alika, which she and Brynner had used as her ''
nom d'amour
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
''.
She married zoologist Scott Lindbergh, son of aviator
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
, in 1968. In 1972, Lindbergh and Watteau established a grant-funded primate research center on an 82-acre estate in the
Dordogne
Dordogne ( , or ; ; oc, Dordonha ) is a large rural department in Southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, it is name ...
valley in France, where they raised and studied dozens of South American monkeys. Watteau and Lindbergh separated in 1983.
During Watteau's marriage to Lindbergh, the couple arranged for Heuvelmans, then in poverty, to live in a small house on the grounds of the Dordogne estate. Watteau attended to Heuvelmans during his final years, and was with him at his death in 2001. In accordance with his last wishes, Watteau was in charge of his private funeral in
Le Vésinet
Le Vésinet () is a suburban commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a part of the affluent outer suburbs of western Paris, from the centre of Paris. In 2019, it had a population of 15,943. ...
.
List of works
The following list comprises the original publications of Watteau's works. Because Watteau used multiple names, each entry includes the name under which the work was published.
As writer
*Monique Watteau, ''La colère végétale'' (Paris: Plon, 1954)
*Monique Watteau, ''La nuit aux yeux de bête'' (Paris: Plon, 1956)
*Monique Watteau, ''L'ange à fourrure'' (Paris: Plon, 1958)
*Monique-Alika Watteau, ''Je suis le ténébreux'' (Paris: Julliard, 1962)
*Alika Lindbergh, ''Nous sommes deux dans l'arche'' (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1975)
*Alika Lindbergh, ''Quand les singes hurleurs se tairont'' (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1976)
*Alika Lindbergh, ''Le testament d'une fée'' (Paris: E-dite, 2002)
*Alika Lindbergh, "Préface," in Bernard Marck, ''Lindbergh, l'ange noir'' (Paris: L'Archipel, 2006)
*Alika Lindbergh, "Préface," in Jean-Jacques Barloy, ''Bernard Heuvelmans, un rebelle de la science'' (Paris: Oeil du sphinx, 2007)
As illustrator
*Hubert Dubois, ''Le danseur du sacre: poèmes'', frontispiece by Monique Watteau (Brussels: Éditions des artistes, 1953)
*André Romus, ''Voix dans le labyrinthe'', frontispiece by Monique Watteau (Paris: Éditions James, P.J. Oswald, 1954)
*Bernard Heuvelmans, '' Sur la piste des bêtes ignorées'', illustrations by Monique Watteau (Paris: Plon, 1955)
*Bernard Heuvelmans, ''Dans le sillage des monstres marins'', Vol. I, ''Le kraken et le poulpe colossal'', illustrations by Monique Watteau (Paris: Plon, 1958)
* Edward Lear, '' Le hibou et la poussiquette'', translated by
Francis Steegmuller
Francis Steegmuller (July 3, 1906 – October 20, 1994) was an American biographer, translator and fiction writer, who was known chiefly as a Flaubert scholar.
Life and career
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Steegmuller graduated from Columbia Un ...
, illustrated by Monique-Alika Watteau (London: Hart-Davis, 1961)
*Bernard Heuvelmans, ''Le grand serpent-de-mer: le problème zoologique et sa solution: histoire des bêtes ignorées de la mer'', illustrated by Alika Watteau (Paris: Plon, 1965)
*Albert Jeannin, ''En vacances avec l'oncle Antoine'', four volumes, illustrated by Alika Watteau (Lausanne: Rencontre, 1967)
*Bernard Heuvelmans, ''Les derniers dragons d'Afrique'', illustrated by Alika Lindbergh (Paris: Plon, 1978)
*Bernard Heuvelmans, ''Les bêtes humaines d'Afrique'', illustrated by Alika Lindbergh (Paris: Plon, 1980)
*Jean-Léo, ''Histoire illustrée du cirque à Bruxelles: saltimbanques et gens du voyage depuis le dix-septième siècle'', illustrations by Alika Lindbergh and others (Brussels: Archives générales du Royaume, 1998)
Other works
* Ian Cameron, '' Le cimetière des cachalots'', translated from the English by Alika Watteau (Paris: Laffont, 1966)
*Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, ''L'agonie des bébés phoques'', contributions by Alika Lindbergh and others (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1978)
*''Regards croisés: collectif d'artistes peintres animaliers: Zsuzsa Farkas, Alika Lindbergh, István Nemes'', catalogue for a Musée Cantonal de Zoologie exhibition of paintings by Lindbergh and others, 17 March to 19 May 2002 (Lausanne: Musée cantonal de zoologie, 2002)