Viviane Forrester (29 September 1925, 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. S ...

– 30 April 2013) was an essayist, novelist, journalist and literary critic.

Biography

Born Viviane Dreyfus in a French Jewish family, after wartime exile she married Simon Stoloff, with whom she had two sons. After they divorced, she married John Forrester - they separated after some years, but never divorced. She worked for ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'', '' Le Nouvel Observateur'' and '' Quinzaine littéraire'' and was a member of the jury of 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 written ...

. She became famous internationally with her books on

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

(

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 ...

2009) and on politics. In ''L'horreur économique'' and ''Une étrange dictature'' she criticized the

globalisation Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

of capitalism. These international bestsellers in particular attacked the free market dogma, and the resulting alienation and misfortunes for the unemployed. She was also a founding member of

ATTAC The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (''Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action'', ATTAC) is an activist organisation originally created to promote the e ...

. Viviane Forrester died Tuesday 30 April 2013.

Awards

She won the

Prix Goncourt de la Biographie 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 ...

in 2009 for her biography of

. She also won the Prix Femina de l'essai in 1983 for her biography of Van Gogh and the Prix Médicis de l'essai in 1996 for "L'horreur économique". She became a member of the jury of the Prix Femina in 1992.

Works

"The NS Essay - Work: the great illusion"
''The New Statesman'', 24 May 1999 *''Ainsi des exilés'', Denoël, 1970 *''Le Grand festin'', Denoël, 1971 *''Le corps entier de Marigda'', Denoël, 1976 *''Vestiges'',

Seuil Seuil () is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Ardennes department The following is a list of the 449 communes of the Ardennes department of France. The communes cooperate ...

, 1978 *''La Violence du calme'', Seuil, 1980 *''Van Gogh ou l'enterrement dans les blés'', Seuil, 1983, *''Le Jeu des poignards'', Gallimard, 1985 *''L'Oeil de la nuit'', Grasset, 1986 *''Mains'', Séguier, 1988, 1001 nuits, 1998 *''Ce Soir, après la guerre'', Lattès, 1992,

Fayard Fayard (complete name: ''Librairie Arthème Fayard'') is a French Paris-based publishing house established in 1857. Fayard is controlled by Hachette Livre. In 1999, Éditions Pauvert became part of Fayard. Claude Durand was director of Fayard ...

, 1997 *''L'horreur économique'', Fayard: Centre d'Exportation du Livre Francais, 1996,
''The Economic Horror''
Wiley-Blackwell, 1999, *''Une étrange dictature'', Fayard, 2000 *''Le Crime occidental'', Fayard, 2004 *''Mes Passions de toujours'', Fayard, 2006 *''Virginia Woolf'', Albin Michel, 2009 (English trans., Jody Gladding.) olumbia University Press,2015. *''Rue de Rivoli'', Gallimard, 2011 *''Dans la fureur glaciale'', Gallimard, 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forrester, Viviane 1925 births 2013 deaths Writers from Paris French political writers French literary critics Women literary critics French women novelists French essayists French women essayists French women critics Prix Femina winners Prix Goncourt winners Prix Goncourt de la Biographie winners Prix Médicis essai winners 20th-century French novelists 20th-century French women writers Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres