Françoise Mallet-Joris
Françoise Mallet-Joris, born Julienne Lilar on July 6, 1930, in Antwerp, Belgium, was a prominent Belgian author known for her historical fiction and biographies. Her upbringing was shaped by the bilingual environment of Flemish and French, and her experiences during the Nazi occupation of Belgium profoundly influenced her worldview. After a brief marriage in the United States and the birth of her son, she returned to Europe, settling in Paris, where she pursued further studies and began her writing career under her pen name to distinguish herself from other authors.
Mallet-Joris's literary work often explores the lives of women in a historical context, with significant titles including "Les Trois Âges de la nuit" and biographies of notable seventeenth-century figures, reflecting on their struggles within a male-dominated society and their relationships with Catholicism. Throughout her career, she was recognized with several accolades, including a medal from King Baudouin of Belgium and membership in the French Goncourt Academy. Françoise Mallet-Joris passed away on August 13, 2016, in Bry-sur-Marne, France, leaving behind a legacy marked by her exploration of faith, identity, and the complexities of women's lives in history.
Françoise Mallet-Joris
- Born: July 6, 1930
- Birthplace: Antwerp, Belgium
- Died: August 13, 2016
- Place of death: August 13, 2016
Biography
Françoise Mallet-Joris is the pen name of Julienne Lilar, born in Antwerp, Belgium, on July 6, 1930. Her father, Albert, was a lawyer and her mother, Suzanne, was a writer and a member of the Belgian Academy. Lilar grew up speaking both Flemish and French, the two official languages of Belgium.
Between 1940 and 1944, her homeland was occupied by Nazi Germany. These four years of oppression and constant fear had a profound effect on the young Lilar. She yearned for freedom, but her parents soon became concerned that she was becoming sexually active. They sent her to study at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she married her professor, Robert Amadou. The two divorced in 1948, one year after the birth of their son Daniel.
After her return to Europe, Lilar settled in Paris where she studied English at the University of Paris. She married twice more and had three more children. She converted to Catholicism in 1955, and her religious faith had a profound influence on her later novels.
Lilar began writing at first under the pen name of Françoise Mallet, later adding the name Joris to avoid confusion with the French writer Robert Mallet. Her major novels are works of historical fiction such as Les Trois Âges de la nuit (1968; three ages of the night) and two biographies of seventeenth century French women, Marie Mancini (1964) and Jeanne Guyon (1978), in which Catholic heroines struggle to develop their personal understanding of Catholicism in a male-dominated Catholic Church. Mallet-Joris has worked for years as a reader for the Parisian publisher Grasset. She has received numerous honors, including a medal from the Belgian King Baudouin in 1957 and election to the prestigious French Goncourt Academy in 1970.
Bibliography
Becker, Lucille F. "Françoise Mallet-Joris." French Women Writers, edited by Eva Martin Sartori and Dorothy Wynne Zimmerman, U of Nebraska P, 1991, pp 305–12.
"Françoise Mallet-Joris." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 4 May 2016, www.britannica.com/biography/Francoise-Mallet-Joris. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.
Petit, Susan. "Françoise Mallet-Joris." Women in French Studies, vol. 14, 2006, 144–45.