Marguerite Duras: A Bio-Bibliography

(Hardback)

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Born in a northern suburb of Saigon in 1914, Marguerite Duras became one of the most prolific and analyzed figures in 20th-century French literature and film. She earned initial fame with her novel, Moderato Cantabile (1958), which sold half a million copies and won the Prix de Mai. At the request of Alain Resnais, she wrote a scenario on the bombing of Hiroshima. Resnais's film, Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), became an immediate hit at Cannes, thus earning Duras further fame. But even after these achievements, little was written about her work until the early 1970s. Since then, the situation has reversed, and a tremendous number of critical and scholarly works have been written about her. This bibliography includes annotated entries for works by and about Duras and includes a brief critical biography and chronology recounting the major events in her life and career. This volume documents the tremendous critical response to Duras's life and work. The book begins with a short critical biography that discusses some of the major events and themes in her career. A chronology then recounts her life in capsule form. The rest of the book presents annotated entries for works by and about Duras. It includes all works by Duras extant at the time of her death in March 1996, along with secondary sources published by the end of 1994. Works by Duras are grouped in chapters listing her writings, films, print interviews, and broadcast interviews. Works about Duras are grouped in chapters on books, edited collections, journals and journal articles, dissertations, reviews, magazine pieces, and critical editions. Several indexes add to the usefulness of the work.

Reviews

"In accurately listing Duras's own extensive writings, media appearances, and interviews in the press, and succinctly summarising the many critical texts that have so far been devoted to her work, Robert Harvey and Helene Volat have provided readers of Duras, students of contemporary writing, and all those interested in writing by women, with an indispensable work of reference and a much-needed research tool. [This book] is an impressive and imposing record of much painstaking work and deserves to figure in any research collection."-Leslie Hill Department of French Studies University of Warwick, UK
.,."provides the most accurate calendar to date of her sixty-three works of fiction, twenty films, twenty-five or so plays and theatrical adaptations, and her spiky, controversial journalism....[They] have also compiled a formidable catalogue of Duras criticism....two"-The Times Literary Supplement, #5016, 1999
...provides the most accurate calendar to date of her sixty-three works of fiction, twenty films, twenty-five or so plays and theatrical adaptations, and her spiky, controversial journalism....[They] have also compiled a formidable catalogue of Duras criticism....two-The Times Literary Supplement, #5016, 1999
Recommended for all college and university libraries.-Choice
The painstaking care and intelligence with which the authors have prepared their bio-bibliography of Duras is a gift to present and future researchers of Duras's literary, filmic, dramatic, and journalistic oeuvre.-French Review
..."provides the most accurate calendar to date of her sixty-three works of fiction, twenty films, twenty-five or so plays and theatrical adaptations, and her spiky, controversial journalism....They have also compiled a formidable catalogue of Duras criticism....two"-The Times Literary Supplement, #5016, 1999
"Recommended for all college and university libraries."-Choice
"The painstaking care and intelligence with which the authors have prepared their bio-bibliography of Duras is a gift to present and future researchers of Duras's literary, filmic, dramatic, and journalistic oeuvre."-French Review

Author Bio

ROBERT HARVEY is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. HLNE VOLAT is Humanities Bibliographer and Reference Librarian at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.