Banine

Umm-El-Banine Assadoulaeff (Umm El-Banu Äsâdullayeva) (1905-1992) was a French writer of Azeri descent - a grand-daughter of two famous Azeri millionaires: Shamsi Asadullayev and Musa Nagiyev. She wrote under the penname of Banine.

Banine had emigrated to France in 1923, following her father who was a minister in the government of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. She moved to Istanbul where she abandoned her husband whom she had been forced to marry at the age of fifteen and then fled to Paris. There, after many years, literary acquaintances, including Montherlant, Kazantzakis, and Malraux urged her to publish. Banine dedicated her later life to introducing the history and culture of Azerbaijan to France and Europe. Her most famous writings are "Caucasian days" and "Parisian days". Banine, who was the friend of the German writer Ernst Junger and Russian Ivan Bunin, tells about her conversion to Catholicism in her books.

She died in October 1992. Her obituary in the newspaper Le Figaro called her “one of those personages of La vie romanesque who traverse a century, attracting like a lodestone all the singular figures of their times”.

Major works

• Jours Caucasiens. Julliard, 1946
• Rencontres avec Ernst Jünger. Paris: Réné Julliard, 1951.
• J'ai Choisi L'opium. Paris, Stock, 1960
• Apres : Stock 1962
• "Jünger, ce méridonal." Antaios, 1965
• "Portrait d'Ernst Jünger: Lettres, Textes, Rencontres. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1971.
• "L'Homme des Complémentaires." La Table Ronde, 1977
• Ernst Jünger aux faces multiples. Lausanne: Éditions L'Age d'Homme, 1989.
• Jours Parisiens. Gris Banal 2003