Béatrix Beck

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Béatrix Beck (born July 30, 1914 in Villars-sur-Ollon , Canton of Vaud / Switzerland; † November 30, 2008 in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte , Val d'Oise / France) was a French writer who was above all realistic wrote oriented, often autobiographical novels. For a short time she was also secretary to the writer André Gide . In 1952 she received the coveted Prix ​​Goncourt . The award-winning novel Léon Morin, prêtre ("In merciless prose, the former atheist tells her own conversion") was made into a film by Melville .

life and work

The daughter of the Belgian writer Christian Beck, who is of Latvian-Italian descent, and an Irish mother who commits suicide, grows up in France. She studies law in Grenoble , becomes a communist, works as a teacher. In 1936 she married the stateless Jew Naum Szapiro, who fell victim to the war in the Ardennes in 1940 . With a daughter, the widow now has to make do with odd jobs, such as a factory worker (partly in Brussels ), a model for a drawing school, a maid, a farm worker. In 1948 she drew attention to herself with her first novel Barny - also André Gide, who hired her as a secretary in 1950. Gide died a little later (1951), but thanks to other successful books, Beck was able to buy an apartment in the Paris house where Sartre lived . Moved to the USA in 1966, she took on various professorships in the United States and Canada. In 1977 she returned to France. The following novels also have an “impossible” love for a young student in Québec . According to Winfried Engler , Beck's main themes are marriage and religion.

Works (selection)

  • Barny , Roman, 1948
  • Une mort irrégulière , novel, 1950

(both together in German as Barny and Der Ordnungswidrige Tod , Ffm 1953, and as Die Erde wants us again , Basel 1956)

  • Léon Morin, prêtre , Roman, 1952, German. Léon Morin, priest, Ffm 1952, Basel 1956
  • Contes à l'enfant né coiffé , children's book, 1953
  • Le muet , 1963
  • Cou coupé court toujours , 1967
  • L'epouvante, l'emerveillement , 1977
  • Noli , Roman, 1978 (about love)
  • La décharge , 1979
  • Josée dite Nancy , 1981
  • Don Juan des forêts , novel, 1983 (about the motif of seduction)
  • L'enfant chat , Roman, 1984

Beck remained productive until shortly before her death.

literature

  • Introduction à La Décharge , Grasset et Fasquelles, Collection Les Cahiers Rouges, Paris, 1988

Awards

  • Prix ​​Goncourt 1952 (for Léon Morin, prêtre )
  • Prix ​​littéraire du Prince Pierre-de-Monaco, 1989 (for the complete works)
  • France Inter Book Prize, 1979 (for La Décharge )
  • Readers award of Trente Mio. d'amis magazine, 1984 (for L'enfant chat )
  • Grand price de littérature de l ' Académie française , 1997
  • Grand prix littéraire de France-Wallonie-Bruxelles, 1997

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Spiegel of April 28, 1954 - on the announcement of the following issue of May 5, which has Beck's portrait on the front page: “The great happiness of the maid. Public life confession: writer Béatrix Beck "
  2. ↑ 1961, with Jean-Paul Belmondo , directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
  3. ↑ so the name in the French Wikipedia , see here , accessed on January 25, 2011
  4. ^ In the encyclopedia of French literature edited by him (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 388). 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-38802-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Beck, Béatrix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Villars-sur-Ollon , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 2008
Place of death Saint-Clair-sur-Epte , France