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Françoise Sagan (June 21, 1935–September 24, 2004), real name Françoise Quoirez, was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Nicknamed “the charming little monster” by François Mauriac,[1] Sagan was best known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois characters.
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Sagan was born in Cajarc (Lot), and spent her early childhood in Lot, surrounded by animals, a passion that stayed with her throughout her life. Nicknamed 'Kiki', she was the spoilt youngest child of bourgeois parents - her father a company director, and her mother the daughter of landowners. Her family spent the war in the Dauphiné, then in the Vercors.[2] She failed entrance examinations to the Sorbonne in 1953. Though notorious all her life for her extravagant lifestyle, she would later attend school there but without graduating.
Her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse ("Hello, Sadness"), was published in 1954, when she was 18 years old, and it was an immediate international success. It concerns the life of pleasure-driven 17-year-old Cécile, in particular her relationship with her boyfriend and her adulterous, playboy father. The novel allegedly influenced the Simon & Garfunkel song The Sounds of Silence, the first words of which, "Hello, darkness", echo Sagan's title.[3] Her pseudonym was taken from a character ("Princesse de Sagan") in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).
Sagan's characters became something of an icon for disillusioned teenagers, in some ways similar to those of J.D. Salinger. She produced dozens of works during a career lasting until 1996, many of which have been filmed. Sporting the austere style of the French psychological novel even while nouveaux romans became popular, the conversations between her characters are often considered to contain existential undertones. In addition to novels, plays, and autobiography, she also wrote song lyrics and screenplays.
In the 1960s, Sagan became more devoted to writing plays, which, though lauded for excellent dialogue, were only moderately successful. Afterwards, she resumed her career as a novelist.
Sagan was married twice: to Guy Schoeller ( married 13 March 1958, an editor with Hachette, 20 years older than Sagan, divorced June 1960), and to Bob Westhof ( a young American playboy and would-be ceramist, married 10 January 1962, divorced 1963; their son Denis was born in June 1963.)[4] She took a lesbian long-term lover, fashion stylist Peggy Roche, and had a male lover, Bernard Frank, a married essayist obsessed with reading and eating. She added to her self-styled "family" by beginning a long-term lesbian affair with the French Playboy magazine editor Annick Geille, after she approached Sagan for an article for her magazine.[1]
Fond of travelling in the United States, she was often seen with Truman Capote and Ava Gardner. On 14 April 1957, while driving her Aston-Martin sports car, she was involved in an accident which left her in a coma for some time. She also loved driving her Jaguar automobile to Monte Carlo for gambling sessions.
In the 1990s Sagan was charged with and convicted of possession of cocaine.
Sagan was, at various times of her life, addicted to a number of drugs. She was a long-term user of prescription pills, amphetamines, cocaine, morphine, and alcohol. When the police came for an inspection of her house, her dog Banko showed cocaine to them and also licked the cocaine. Sagan told the police, "Look! he likes it too."
Her health was reported to be poor in the 2000s. In 2002 she was unable to appear at a trial that convicted her of tax fraud in a case involving the former French President François Mitterrand, and she received a suspended sentence. Françoise Sagan died of a pulmonary embolism in Honfleur, Calvados, on 24 September 2004 at the age of 69.
In his memorial statement, the French President Jacques Chirac said: "With her death, France loses one of its most brilliant and sensitive writers - an eminent figure of our literary life."
Sagan's life was dramatized in a biographical film, Sagan directed by Diane Kurys, released in France on 11 June 2008. The French actress Sylvie Testud played the title role.
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