Francois Mauriac – författare

Nobel-prize winner François Mauriac's masterpiece is Thérèse Desqueyroux, the story of a complex woman trapped by provincial life. First published in 1927, this astonishing and daring novel has echoes of Madame Bovary and has recently been made into a ravishing film starring Amélie actress Audrey Tautou. Thérèse Desqueyroux walks free from court, acquitted of trying to poison her husband. Everyone knew she'd tried to do it, but family honour was more important than the truth. As she travels home to the gloomy forests of Argelouse, Thérèse looks back over the marriage that brought her nothing but stifling darkness, and wonders, has she really escaped punishment or is it only just about to begin?François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux in 1885. He left his university studies to devote himself to writing, and published a collection of poems, Les Mains jointes (Clasped Hands), in 1909. He married in 1913 and the following year was mobilized to serve in the First World War with the Auxilliary Medical Squad in Thessalonica. Mauriac's major literary breakthrough came in 1922 with a novel called Le Baiser au lepreux (A Kiss for the Leper). His most famous work, Thérèse Desqueroux, appeared in 1927 and has been made into a film twice: first in 1962, with Emmanuelle Riva in the lead role, and more recently in 2012, in a version starring Audrey Tautou. In 1933 Mauriac was elected a Member of the French Academy and in 1952 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in Paris in 1970.'A great novel ... the brilliance of its structure and the elegance of its prose never fail to take my breath away' - Beryl Bainbridge

François Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in literature, is one of the most prominent Catholic novelists of the modern era, yet in the English speaking world he is known primarily for only one novel, 1927's Thérèse Desqueyroux. In this new translation of two other seminal works by Mauriac, the 1930 novel What Was Lost and its theoretical basis, the 1929 essay God and Mammon, Raymond N. MacKenzie re-introduces Mauriac to the English speaking world. Featuring a scholarly introduction by MacKenzie that provides background on Mauriac's religious and artistic struggles, this new edition will delight scholars of Mauriac as well as contemporary readers previously unfamiliar with his work.

François Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest Catholic novels, Thérèse Desqueyroux is the haunting story of an unhappily married young woman whose desperation drives her to thoughts of murder. Mauriac paints an unforgettable portrait of spiritual isolation and despair, but he also dramatizes the complex realities of forgiveness, grace, and redemption. Set in the countryside outside Bordeaux, in a region of overwhelming heat and sudden storms, the novel's landscape reflects the inner world of Thérèse, a figure who has captured the imaginations of readers for generations.Raymond N. MacKenzie's translation of Thérèse Desqueyroux, the first since 1947, captures the poetic lyricism of Mauriac's prose as well as the intensity of his stream-of-consciousness narrative. MacKenzie also provides notes and a biographical and interpretive introduction to help readers better appreciate the mastery of François Mauriac, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952. This volume also includes a translation of "Conscience, The Divine Instinct," Mauriac's first draft of the story, never before available in English.

Les Mains jointes (1909) was the collection of poetry that launched the long career of Nobel Prize-winning author François Mauriac (1885-1970). This critical edition provides the first ever overview of the volume’s complex textual history (spanning four decades). Drawing on Mauriac’s unpublished cahiers de jeunesse, Paul Cooke challenges the author’s claim that the majority of the poems in the collection were written while he was still at school. A selection of additional poems published between 1905 and 1923 (some of which have remained hidden for nearly a century) allows the reader to situate Les Mains jointes in relation to Mauriac’s wider verse output. In his Introduction, Cooke both explores the genesis and history of Les Mains jointes and offers some analysis of Mauriac’s style as a poet.