Nathalie Sarraute

Nathalie Sarraute (born July 18, 1900 in Ivanovo, Russia - died October 19, 1999 in Paris, France) was a lawyer and a Francophone writer of Russian origin.

Sarraute was born as Natalia/Natacha Tcherniak in Ivanovo, near Moscow, and passed her childhood between France and Russia. In 1909, her father and she moved permanently to Paris. She studied law (at the Sorbonne), history (in Oxford), and sociology (in Berlin), and became a lawyer. She was likewise interested in 20th century literature, especially Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, who greatly affected her conception of the novel.

In 1925, she married Raymond Sarraute, a fellow lawyer. In 1932 she wrote her first book, Tropismes, published in 1939, but the beginning of World War II prevented the book from achieving popularity. In 1941, she was released from her work as a lawyer because of the Nazi laws. During this time, she had to hide herself and to divorce her husband to protect him (although they stayed together). Nathalie dedicated herself to literature, writing Portrait of a Man Unknown (1958), a novel applauded by Jean-Paul Sartre (who also contributed a foreword). The novel only drew notice from literary insiders, as did her following novel Martereau.

Her essay The Age of Suspicion (L'Ère du soupçon, 1970) served as a prime manifesto for the nouveau roman, alongside Alain Robbe-Grillet's For a New Novel. Sarraute became, along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the rise of the nouveau roman.

Sarraute was awarded the Prix international de littérature for her novel The Golden Fruits in 1963. For Sarraute this novel led to greater popularity, and she was invited to public-speaking circuits in France and abroad. Since 1963, she also dabbled as dramatist and penned seven plays, including Le Silence (1963), Le Mensonge (1965) and Elle est là (1993).

Beside other essays, her novels included Between Life and Death (1968), The Use of Speech (1980) and You Don't Love Yourself (1989). Her works are translated into more than 30 languages.

Her novels are often considered difficult, as they lack distinguishable characters and plots. Sarraute's primary emphasis is on the faithful depiction of psychological phenomena, as in The Golden Fruits, a novella consisting of characters' inner thoughts and public argument regarding an avant-garde novel, and The Planetarium (1959), a novel focusing on a young man's obsession with inheriting his aunt's apartment.

In contrast to the relative difficulty of Sarraute's novels, her memoir Childhood is considered a far easier read, and was adapted into a Broadway play starring Glenn Close.

Sarraute's daughter is the famous journalist Claude Sarraute, wife of French Academician Jean-François Revel.

Works (An Incomplete Listing)

• Tropismes, 1939
• Portrait of a Man Unknown (Portrait d’un inconnu), 1948
• Martereau 1953 (novel)
• L'Ère du soupçon, 1956 (essay)
• The Planetarium, 1959 (novel)
• The Golden Fruits (Les Fruits d'or), 1963 (novel)
• Le Silence 1964 (theatre)
• Le Mensonge, 1966 (novel)
• Entre la vie et la mort 1968 (novel)
• Isma, ou ce qui s’appelle rien 1970 (theatre)
• Vous les entendez ? 1972 (novel)
• C’est beau 1975 (theatre)
• « disent les imbéciles », 1976 (novel)
• L’Usage de la parole 1980 (novel)
• Enfance 1983 (autobiography)
• Tu ne t’aimes pas 1989 (novel)
• Elle est là 1993 (Theatre)
• Pour un oui ou pour un non 1993 (theatre)
• Ici 1995 (novel)
• Ouvrez 1997 (novel)
• Lecture 1998