Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras, the daughter of French schoolteachers, was born in Gia Dinh, Vietnam, on 4th April, 1914. At the age of seventeen Duras moved to France where she studied law and politics at the University of Paris.

After Henri-Philippe Petain signed the armistice in 1940 she joined the French Resistance and during the occupation she worked for the Cercle de la Librairie, where she was in control of paper rationing. Her husband, Robert Antelme, was also a member of the resistance and after his arrest by the Gestapo he was deported and imprisoned in Dachau.

In 1944 Duras joined the Communist Party. However, her protests concerning the treatment of writers in the Soviet Union led to her being expelled in 1950.

Her novels include The Sea Wall (1952), The Vice Consul (1966), Destroy (1969), The Lover (1985) and That's All (1995). She also wrote the film scripts for Hiroshima mon Amour (1960), India Song (1975) and The Ravishing of Lol Stein (1985).

Marguerite Duras died in Paris on 3rd March, 1996.