Marie NDiaye (born 4 June 1967) is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter. She published her first novel, Quant au riche avenir, when she was 17. She won the Prix Goncourt in 2009. Her play Papa doit manger is the sole play by a living female writer to be part of the repertoire of the Comédie française. She co-wrote the screenplay for the 2022 legal drama Saint Omer alongside its director Alice Diop, and Amrita David. In September 2022 the film was selected as France's official selection for Best International Film at the 95th Academy Awards.[1]

Marie NDiaye
Born (1967-06-04) 4 June 1967 (age 57)
Pithiviers, Loiret, France
OccupationNovelist, essayist, playwright
Period1984–present
Notable awardsNelly Sachs Prize (2015)
SpouseJean-Yves Cendrey
RelativesPap Ndiaye (brother)

Biography

edit

NDiaye was born in 1967 in Pithiviers, France, to a French mother and a Senegalese father. She grew up with her mother and her brother Pap Ndiaye in the suburbs of Paris. Her parents met as students in the mid-1960s, but her father returned to Senegal when she was one year old.

She began writing at the age of 12. As a senior in high school, she was discovered by Jerome Lindon, founder of Éditions de Minuit, who published her first novel, Quant au riche avenir, in 1985.[2]

She subsequently wrote six more novels, all published by Minuit, and a collection of short stories. She also wrote her Comédie classique, a 200-page novel made up of a single sentence, which was published by Éditions P.O.L in 1988, when she was 21 years old. In addition, NDiaye has written several plays. She co-wrote the screenplay for White Material with director Claire Denis. NDiaye's 2003 drama Papa doit manger is distinguished as the second play by a female writer to be taken into the repertoire of the Comédie française.

In 1998, NDiaye wrote a letter to the press in which she argued that her novel La Sorcière, published two years earlier, had strongly informed the content of Naissance des fantômes, the second novel of successful author Marie Darrieussecq.[3]

Her novel Trois femmes puissantes won the 2009 Prix Goncourt.[4] In his 2013 critical study of the author, Marie NDiaye: Blankness and Recognition, British academic Andrew Asibong describes her as "the epitome of a certain kind of cultural brilliance".[5] In his psychoanalytic exploration of the writer's evocation of trauma and disavowal, he says that "NDiaye's work explores the violence done to the subject's capacity for feeling and knowing".[6]

Exile in Berlin

edit

In an interview published by Les Inrockuptibles on 30 August 2009, NDiaye declared about Sarkozy's France,

"I find that France monstrous. The fact that we [with her companion, writer Jean-Yves Cendrey [fr] and their three children-- editor's note] have chosen to live in Berlin for two years is far from being unrelated to that. We left just after the elections, in a large part because of Sarkozy, even if I am very aware that saying that can seem snobbish. I find that atmosphere of vulgarity and heavy policing detestable ... Besson, Hortefeux, all of those people, I find them monstrous".[7]

Awards and honours

edit

Works

edit

Novels and short stories

edit
  • Quant au riche avenir – Les Editions de Minuit, 1985 (ISBN 2-7073-1018-2)
  • Comédie classiqueÉditions P.O.L [fr], 1988 (ISBN 2-86744-082-3)
  • La femme changée en bûche – Minuit, 1989 (ISBN 2-7073-1285-1)
  • En famille – Minuit, 1991 (ISBN 2-7073-1367-X)
    • Translated into English as Among Family by Heather Doyal – Angela Royal Publishing, 1997 (ISBN 978-1899860401)
  • Un temps de saison – Minuit, 1994 (ISBN 2-7073-1474-9)
    • Translated into English as That Time of Year by Jordan Stump – Two Lines Press, 2020 (ISBN 978-1931883917)
  • La Sorcière – Minuit, 1996 (ISBN 2-7073-1569-9)
  • Rosie Carpe – Minuit, Prix Femina 2001 (ISBN 2-7073-1740-3)
    • Translated into English as Rosie Carpe by Tamsin Black – Bison Books, 2004 (ISBN 978-0803283831)
  • Tous mes amis, nouvelles – Minuit, 2004 (ISBN 2-7073-1859-0)
    • Translated into English as All My Friends by Jordan Stump – Two Lines Press, 2013 (ISBN 978-1931883238)
  • Autoportrait en vert – Mercure de France, 2005 (ISBN 2-7152-2481-8)
    • Translated into English as Self-Portrait in Green by Jordan Stump – Two Lines Press, 2014 (ISBN 978-1931883399)
  • Mon cœur a l'etroitÉditions Gallimard, 2007 (ISBN 978-2-07-077457-9)
    • Translated into English as My Heart Hemmed In by Jordan Stump – Two Lines Press, 2017 (ISBN 978-1931883627)
  • Trois femmes puissantes – Gallimard, Prix Goncourt, 2009 (ISBN 978-2070786541).
  • Ladivine – Gallimard, 2013 (ISBN 978-2-07-012669-9)
  • La Cheffe, roman d'une cuisinière – Gallimard, 2016 (ISBN 978-2070116232)
  • La vengeance m’appartient – Gallimard, 2022 (ISBN 9782072977220)
    • Translated into English as Vengeance is Mine by Jordan Stump – Alfred A. Knopf, 2023 (ISBN 9780593534243)

Plays

edit

Children's novels

edit

Essays

edit

Screenplay

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Roxborough, Scott (23 September 2022). "Oscars: France Picks 'Saint Omer' as International Feature Submission". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  2. ^ Raphaëlle Rérolle, "Libre d'écrire", Le Monde, 3 November 2009.
  3. ^ Antoine de Gaudemar, "Marie NDiaye polémique avec Marie Darrieussecq", Libération, 3 March 1998.
  4. ^ Ingrid Rousseau, "Novelist NDiaye wins France's top literary prize", Seattle Times, 2 November 2009.
  5. ^ Andrew Asibong, Marie NDiaye: Blankness and Recognition, Liverpool University Press, 2013, p. 9.
  6. ^ Asibong, Marie NDiaye (2013), p. 13.
  7. ^ "L'écrivain Marie Ndiaye aux prises avec le monde" Archived 15 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine, interview by Nelly Kaprièlian [fr], Les Inrockuptibles, 30 August 2009.
  8. ^ "Marie N'Diaye erhält Nelly-Sachs-Preis". dortmund.de (in German). 7 September 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  9. ^ "The Man Booker International Prize 2016 Longlist Announced", The Man Booker Prizes, 2016.
  10. ^ "Marie NDiaye" Archived 25 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine, The Man Booker Prizes.
  11. ^ "The 2017 BTBA Finalists for Fiction and Poetry", The Millions, 18 April 2017.
  12. ^ Mark Williams, "2018 International DUBLIN Literary Award shortlist announced", The New Publishing Standard, 5 April 2018.
edit