Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour 8 June 1903 17 December 1987 was a Belgianborn French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947 Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize she was the first woman elected to the Académie Française in 1980 Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour in Brussels Belgium to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour of French bourgeois descent originating from French Flanders a very wealthy landowner and a Belgian mother Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne of Belgian nobility who died ten days after her birth She grew up in the home of her paternal grandmother She adopted the surname Yourcenar an almost anagram of Crayencour having one fewer c as a pen name in 1947 she also took it as her legal surname Yourcenars first novel Alexis was published in 1929 She translated Virginia Woolfs The Waves over a 10month period in 1937 In 1939 her partner at the time the literary scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick invited Yourcenar to the United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe She lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College Yourcenar was a lesbian she and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Fricks death in 1979 and a tormented relationship with Jerry Wilson After ten years spent in Hartford Connecticut they bought a house in Northeast Harbor Maine on Mount Desert Island where they lived for decades They are buried alongside each other at Brookside Cemetery Somesville Mount Desert Maine In 1951 she published in France the novel Memoirs of Hadrian which she had been writing onandoff for a decade The novel was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim In this novel Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world the Roman emperor Hadrian who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius the son and heir of Antoninus Pius his successor and adoptive son The Emperor meditates on his past describing both his triumphs and his failures his love for Antinous and his philosophy The novel has become a modern classic In 1980 Yourcenar was the first female member elected to the Académie française An anecdote tells of how the bathroom labels were then changed in this maledominated institution MessieursMarguerite Yourcenar GentsMarguerite Yourcenar She published many novels essays and poems as well as a trilogy of memoirs At the time of her death she was working on the third volume called Quoi LEternité Yourcenars house on Mount Desert Island Petite Plaisance is now a museum dedicated to her memory She is buried across the sound in Somesville Maine Source Article Marguerite Yourcenar from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30