Claire de Duras – författare

'I have no secrets; my unhappiness is the story of my entire life.'A key figure in the literary world of post-Revolutionary Paris, Claire de Duras was a writer of exceptional talent, admired by Sainte-Beuve and Goethe, imitated by Stendhal, and influencing later writers such as Fromentin, Ourika describes the discrimination suffered by a young Black woman brought up in an aristocratic French family, her unconscious adoption of this racial disdain, and her redemption by faith. Édouard charts the impossibility of the bourgeois hero's love for the daughter of the aristocratic family into which he has been adopted on his parents' death. In the epistolary Olivier, the two central protagonists, clearly in love, are nevertheless prevented from marriage by Olivier's secret. Now accepted as integral to French Romanticism and the history of women's writing, the narratives showcase Duras's empathy with the exceptional, the outcast, and the victims of social injustice, providing pioneering studies in race, class, and sexuality. Chris Miller's new translations into English are accompanied by an introduction and notes by Pratima Prasad, highlighting major themes in the texts. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'I have no secrets; my unhappiness is the story of my entire life.'A key figure in the literary world of post-Revolutionary Paris, Claire de Duras was a writer of exceptional talent, admired by Sainte-Beuve and Goethe, imitated by Stendhal, and influencing later writers such as Fromentin, Ourika describes the discrimination suffered by a young Black woman brought up in an aristocratic French family, her unconscious adoption of this racial disdain, and her redemption by faith. A douard charts the impossibility of the bourgeois hero's love for the daughter of the aristocratic family into which he has been adopted on his parents' death. In the epistolary Olivier, the two central protagonists, clearly in love, are nevertheless prevented from marriage by Olivier's secret. Now accepted as integral to French Romanticism and the history of women's writing, the narratives showcase Duras's empathy with the exceptional, the outcast, and the victims of social injustice, providing pioneering studies in race, class, and sexuality. Chris Miller's new translations into English are accompanied by an introduction and notes by Pratima Prasad, highlighting major themes in the texts. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'I have no secrets; my unhappiness is the story of my entire life.'A key figure in the literary world of post-Revolutionary Paris, Claire de Duras was a writer of exceptional talent, admired by Sainte-Beuve and Goethe, imitated by Stendhal, and influencing later writers such as Fromentin, Ourika describes the discrimination suffered by a young Black woman brought up in an aristocratic French family, her unconscious adoption of this racial disdain, and her redemption by faith. A douard charts the impossibility of the bourgeois hero's love for the daughter of the aristocratic family into which he has been adopted on his parents' death. In the epistolary Olivier, the two central protagonists, clearly in love, are nevertheless prevented from marriage by Olivier's secret. Now accepted as integral to French Romanticism and the history of women's writing, the narratives showcase Duras's empathy with the exceptional, the outcast, and the victims of social injustice, providing pioneering studies in race, class, and sexuality. Chris Miller's new translations into English are accompanied by an introduction and notes by Pratima Prasad, highlighting major themes in the texts. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

John Fowles presents a remarkable translation of a nineteenth-century work that provided the seed for his acclaimed novel The French Lieutenant's Woman and that will astonish and haunt modern readers.Based on a true story, Claire de Duras's Ourika relates the experiences of a Senegalese girl who is rescued from slavery and raised by an aristocratic French family during the time of the French Revolution. Brought up in a household of learning and privilege, she is unaware of her difference until she overhears a conversation that suddenly makes her conscious of her race—and of the prejudice it arouses. From this point on, Ourika lives her life not as a French woman but as a black woman who feels "cut off from the entire human race." As the Reign of Terror threatens her and her adoptive family, Ourika struggles with her unusual position as an educated African woman in eighteenth-century Europe.A best-seller in the 1820s, Ourika captured the attention of Duras's peers, including Stendhal, and became the subject of four contemporary plays. The work represents a number of firsts: the first novel set in Europe to have a black heroine; the first French literary work narrated by a black female protagonist; and, as Fowles points out in the foreword to his translation, "the first serious attempt by a white novelist to enter a black mind."

A Senegalese girl is bought as an infant and raised in a Paris salon as an aristocrat's ward - loved, educated, and then old enough to notice that no one will marry her. Claire de Duras lost her father to the guillotine and wrote this in 1823 from inside the society she is describing; it is the first French novel to give a black woman a mind and a voice, and it was a sensation.

À l''âge de deux ans, Ourika est achetée avant son embarquement sur un navire négrier par le Gouverneur du Sénégal. Ainsi arrachée de justesse à sa condition d''esclave, Ourika est offerte en France à Madame de B., auprès de qui elle reçoit une éducation aristocratique rigoureuse. Ourika devient une jeune adolescente instruite et épanouie. Pourtant, à l''âge de douze ans, elle surprend une conversation à son sujet. Elle comprend alors que sa couleur de peau fait d''elle une étrangère parmi la société à laquelle elle pensait être acclimatée, et que le mariage qu''elle espérait avec Charles ne lui sera jamais permis…Ourika est une des premières héroïne d''origine Africaine de la littérature occidentale, ainsi qu''une des premières héroïnes romantiques prise dans la dualité même de sa double origine. Si Goethe lui-même fut bouleversé par ce roman, c''est que Claire de Durfort Duras jette une lumière des plus pures sur l''esclavage, l''éducation des filles, et le sentiment de rejet lié à l''origine.Ce best-seller connut un immense succès, et de nos jours encore continue de nous émouvoir et de nous interroger sur l''égalité. Comme « Peau noire, masques blanc » de Frantz Fanon, le récit explore une question rarement examinée en psychologie à sa sortie : celle des conséquences du colonialisme sur les colonisés.

Ce recueil est composé de 5 textes féministes parcourant les XVIIIe, XIXe et XXe siècles :Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne : « La Femme naît libre et demeure égale à l''homme en droits. » C''est ainsi qu''Olympe de Gouges, grande figure de la Révolution française, interpelle les femmes du monde entier, d''hier, d''aujourd''hui, et de demain, et ouvre un passage libéré de l''exclusivité masculine à toutes les générations futures. Le 3 novembre 1793, avant d''être guillotinée pour ses idées politiques, elle aurait lancé : « Je suis certaine que nous triompherons un jour ».Ourika : Ourika est une des premières héroïne d''origine Africaine de la littérature occidentale, ainsi qu''une des premières héroïnes romantiques prise dans la dualité même de sa double origine. Si Goethe lui-même fut bouleversé par ce roman, c''est que Claire de Durfort Duras jette une lumière des plus pures sur l''esclavage, l''éducation des filles, et le sentiment de rejet lié à l''origine.Indiana : Oppressé par son mariage, et une nouvelle relation destructrice, Indiana est le symbole d''un genre. George Sand dénonce, pour la première fois camouflée derrière un pseudonyme masculin, les conditions de vie des femmes du XIXe siècle.De l''assujettissement des femmes : L´écrivain britannique John Stuart Mill était l´un des premiers écrivains masculins à se positionner pour l´égalité des sexes et à défendre la libération des femmes. Il se pencha sur la liberté économique des femmes et était de l´avis que le rôle d´une femme dans le mariage devait évoluer.La Petite Dame dans la Grande Maison : Début du XXe siècle en Amérique : et si la femme pouvait choisir la vie amoureuse qui lui convient ? Libérés de la morale ordinaire, les personnages de London vivent en ménage à trois. De quoi secouer les conservateurs !

Ce peu de pages ont été laissées par une personne que le monde a aimée et admirée. On y pressent les douleurs que toute âme délite, tout esprit supérieur trouve sur les chemins de cette vie, mais avec les apaisements quun cur aimant et pieux sait faire venir de lautre. On a cru quelles pourraient être un secours à qui souffre aussi et, voulant se replier dans le sein de Dieu, cherche les pensées qui assurent ce divin abri et les paroles qui font descendre la paix du ciel.Nos peines nacceptent pas toujours volontiers les consolations offertes par ceux que les longues habitudes dune vie calme et reposée ont dès longtemps mis à part de la foule. Notre faiblesse se refuse à comprendre quon puisse nous bien parler des épreuves quon na pas subies. Un étranger nest-il pas comme un peu suspect? Les âmes qui ont souffert ont des signes auxquels elles se reconnaissent; elles trouveront ici laccent de leur patrie.