Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on 4 April 1914, in Gia Định, Cochinchina, French Indochina (now Vietnam). Her parents, Marie (née Legrand, 1877–1956) and Henri Donnadieu (1872–1921), were teachers from France who likely had met at Gia Định High School. They both had previous marriages. Marguerite had two brothers: Pierre, the older, and the younger Paul.
Duras' father fell ill and he returned to France, where he died in 1921, when Duras was seven years old. Between 1922 and 1924, the family lived in France while her mother was on administrative leave. They then moved back to French Indochina when she was posted to Phnom Penh followed by Vĩnh Long and Sa Đéc. The family struggled financially, and her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland in Prey Nob, a story which was fictionalized in Un barrage contre le Pacifique (The Sea Wall).
In 1931, when she was 17, Duras and her family moved to France where she successfully passed the first part of the baccalaureate with the choice of Vietnamese as a foreign language, as she spoke it fluently. Duras returned to Saigon in late 1932 where her mother found a teaching post. There, Marguerite continued her education at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat and completed the second part of the baccalaureate, specializing in philosophy.
In autumn 1933, Duras moved to Paris, graduating with a degree in public law in 1936. At the same time, she took classes in mathematics. She continued her education, earning a diplôme d'études supérieures (DES) in public law and, later, in political economy. After finishing her studies in 1937, she found employment with the French government at the Ministry of the Colonies. In 1939, she married the writer Robert Antelme, whom she had met during her studies.
During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for the Vichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated a de facto book-censorship system. She then became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party) and a member of the French Resistance as a part of a small group that also included François Mitterrand, who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of hers. Duras' husband, Antelme, was deported to Buchenwald in 1944 for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Duras, just 38 kg, or 84 pounds). She nursed him back to health, but they divorced once he recovered.
In 1943, when publishing her first novel, she began to use the surname Duras, after the town that her father came from, Duras, Lot-et-Garonne.
In 1950, her mother returned to France from Indochina, wealthy from property investments and from the boarding school she had run. ...
Source: Article "Marguerite Duras" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Photos
Movies (91)
François Mitterrand, une autre vie possible
2026 · Self (archive) - novelist
Little Girl Blue
2023 · Self (archive footage)
Writing
2023 · Book
Godard Cinema
2023 · Self (archive footage)
Azuro
2022 · Writer
La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président
2022 · Self (archive footage)
Suzanna Andler
2021 · Theatre Play
Mitterrand, président culturel
2021 · Self (archive footage)
Marguerite Duras, l'écriture et la vie
2021 · Self
Pornotropic
2020 · Self - Writer (archive footage)
One Day at the Sea
2020 · Theatre Play
Delphine and Carole
2020 · Self (archive footage)
L'affaire Matzneff
2020 · Self (archive footage)
Drifters of a shadowy dream
2018 · Novel
Jeanne Moreau: Free Spirit
2018 · Self - Writer (archive footage)
Memoir of War
2017 · Novel
Les vendredis d'Apostrophes
2015 · Self (archive footage)
A Stormy Summer Night
2015 · Novel
Duras and Cinema
2014 · self (archive footage)
The Sea Wall
2009 · Novel
Half Past Ten
2008 · Author
Hiroshima: The Time of Return
2005 · (voice)
The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas
2004 · Novel
Agatha
2004 · Theatre Play
Marguerite as She Was
2003 · Self (archive footage)
Écrire
1994 · Self
Marguerite Duras
1994 · Self
The Malady of Death
1994 · Adaptation
The Death of the Young English Aviator
1993 · Self
The Lover
1992 · Novel
Savannah Bay
1989 · Original Story
Duras/Godard
1987 · Self
The Children
1985 · Director, Writer
The Malady of Death
1985 · Novel
Marguerite Duras: Worn Out with Desire . . . to Write
1985 · Self
La Dame des Yvelines
1984 · Self
The Colour of Words
1984 · Self
Savannah Bay c’est toi
1984 · Self
Work and Words
1984 · Self
Roman Dialogue
1983 · Director, Writer
One Minute for One Image
1983 · Self - Narrator
En rachâchant
1982 · Short Story
L’homme atlantique
1981 · Narrator (voice), Director, Writer
Agatha and the Limitless Readings
1981 · Narrator (voice), Director, Writer
Duras Shoots
1981 · Self
La bête dans la jungle
1981 · Writer
Mulher a Mulher: Interview with Marguerite Duras by Yann Lemée
1980 · Self
Le Navire Night
1979 · (voice), Director, Screenplay
Aurélia Steiner (Vancouver)
1979 · Narrator (voice), Director, Writer
Aurélia Steiner (Melbourne)
1979 · Director, Writer
Césarée
1978 · Self - Narrator (voice), Director, Writer
Les Mains négatives
1978 · Self - Narrator (voice), Director, Writer
Music
1978 · Theatre Play
Baxter, Vera Baxter
1977 · Narrator (voice) (uncredited), Director, Writer
The Lorry
1977 · elle, Director, Writer
Entire Days in the Trees
1977 · Director, Theatre Play, Screenplay
Cygne I
1976 · Narrator (voice), Editor
Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert
1976 · Director, Writer
The Places of Marguerite Duras
1976 · Self
Gaumont-Palace
1976 · Narrator (voice)
India Song
1975 · Voix Intemporelle (voice), Director, Writer
Woman of the Ganges
1974 · Voice, Director, Writer
Nathalie Granger
1973 · (voice), Author, Director
Jaune, Le Soleil
1971 · Writer, Director
Destroy, She Said
1969 · Director, Writer
La Musica
1969 · Theatre Play
Marguerite Duras and the '68ers
1968 · Self
Marguerite Duras and the Prison Governess
1967 · Self
The Square
1967 · Story
La Musica
1967 · Writer, Director
Days in the Trees
1967 · Story
The Sailor from Gibraltar
1967 · Novel
10:30 P.M. Summer
1966 · Screenplay, Novel
La Voleuse
1966 · Writer
Mademoiselle
1966 · Writer
Un metteur en ordre: Robert Bresson
1966 · Self
Marguerite Duras in the Lions' Den
1966 · Self
Pop Age
1966 · Self
Les enfants et Noël
1965 · Self - Narrator (voice)
The Moment of Peace
1965 · Screenplay
Marguerite Duras and Stripper Lolo Pigalle
1965 · Self
Marguerite Duras interviews Jeanne Moreau
1965 · Self
Dim Dam Dom: Marguerite Duras and Little François
1965 · Self
Sans merveille
1964 · Writer
Dark Night, Calcutta
1964 · Writer
The Square
1961 · Writer
The Long Absence
1961 · Writer
Seven Days… Seven Nights
1960 · Novel, Screenplay
Hiroshima Mon Amour
1959 · Screenplay
This Angry Age
1957 · Novel
The Marguerite Duras Century
· Self
