Marguerite Duras
(1914 - 1996)
(Born Marguerite Donnadieu) French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, short story writer, and essayist.
Marguerite Duras: Introduction
Marguerite Duras: Principal Works...
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One of the most important literary figures in France, Marguerite Duras won international acclaim after she was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt for her autobiographical novel L'Amant (translated almost ...
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Critical Essay by Alfred Cismaru
As does all her fiction after 1953 (the date of Les Petits chevaux de Tarquinia, a transitional work), Madame Duras' first play [Les Viaducs de la Seine-et-Oise...
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Critical Essay by Erica M. Eisinger
The basic theme of Marguerite Duras' novels, plays, and films is the interplay between love and destruction, conflicting drives which are often resolved in t...
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Critical Essay by Francis S. Heck
[The purpose of this study is to reveal a] possible dimension to … Dix heures et demie du soir en été, namely that of symbolism in the relationsh...
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Critical Essay by Roger Greenspun
I'm not sure that I can reasonably explain the pleasure I take in Marguerite Duras's "Destroy, She Said," much of which I find unendurable...
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Critical Essay by Michael Tarantino
India Song is a film which simultaneously represents a departure from, and a codification of, Marguerite Duras' oeuvre. The narration introduces characters w...
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Critical Essay by Richard Roud
The ostensible subject of Le Camion is a film-maker (played by Mme. Duras herself) going over the script of a film she wants to make with the other leading player…...
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Critical Essay by John Coleman
I have slumped through India Song twice. It does not improve on closer acquaintance. To be fair to Mlle Duras, she is quotably her worst enemy: 'I make films to k...
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Critical Essay by Pauline Kael
[The control in Duras's] new film, Le Camion—The Truck—suggests that she has become a master. But there's a joker in her mastery: though her ...
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Critical Essay by Janet Maslin
In "The Truck," the director and novelist Marguerite Duras plays a woman whose lips curl into a joyless, knowing half-smile every time she makes mention of...
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Critical Essay by Terry Curtis Fox
The last thing I felt like doing that Tuesday was see a film by Marguerite Duras. I'd been exhausted by festivaling all day. The rigors of The Truck were, I f...
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Critical Essay by William F. Van Wert
Marguerite Duras has pioneered what she calls the "multiple work of art," a text which is simultaneously a novel, a play, a dance, a film, an opera....
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Critical Essay by John Simon
[Marguerite Duras's Destroy, She Said is an abomination.] Hitherto the author was content to write bad novels or bad scripts for other directors; here for the secon...
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Critical Essay by John Russell Taylor
Like scènes à faire that should absolutely not be faites, there are inescapable questions which just should not be asked. With Détruire, Dit-...
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Critical Essay by Vincent Canby
Because Miss Duras writes so elliptically, there is no special sense that she has padded [the original play of "La Musica"] until the confrontation in the...
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Critical Essay by Vincent Canby
The most insidious thing about the nouveau movie, which is a polite way of describing Marguerite Duras's newest, most minimal film, "Nathalie Granger,�...
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Critical Essay by Nora Sayre
Stiff as uncooked asparagus, the figures who stalk through Marguerite Duras's "Woman of the Ganges" don't have to act, since the movie is narra...
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Critical Essay by Michael Tarantino
[Woman of the Ganges] is a deliberate journey through a self-endowed world, in which cinema itself, as a means of expression, is alternately questioned, denied, and...
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Critical Essay by Dean Mcwilliams
Rather than attempting a detailed realistic evocation of a resort hotel such as those in Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad or Visconti's Death in Venice, ...
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Critical Essay by Molly Haskell
[In "India Song," Marguerite Duras's] most perfectly realized film, the present is in a constant state of deliquescence. As in her previous films, ...
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In the following review, Josipovici claims that Practicalities is surprisingly boring and uninformative given the high quality of Duras' fiction.
Throughout the autumn and winter of 1986 Margue...
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Below, Gunn reviews two of Duras' works, Le Monde Exterieur and Ecrire, as well as Christiane Blot-Labarrer's Marguerite Duras and Leslie Hill's Marguerite Duras, both biographies...
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In the essay below, Ramsay considers the autobiographical fiction genre and analyzes the language and structure of Duras' works.
It has been a matter of theoretical concern that "differe...
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In the following review, Manguel considers the autobiographical nature of The North China Lover and concludes that a clear, factual biography would aid the reader in interpreting Duras' works.
...
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In the following essay, Mazzola discusses the relationship between gender and familial roles in Duras's fiction.
Brothers form bridges and barriers between mothers and daughters in much of Marg...
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In the essay below, which is based on an interview with Duras, Riding discusses the autobiographical nature of her writing.
To describe Marguerite Duras as a little old lady, even though she is all th...
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In the following essay, which is based on an interview with Duras, Garis discusses how the author's views and life experiences have impacted her writing.
Novelist, playwright, film maker, Commu...
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In the following interview, Duras remarks on feminism and how the response to her work has differed in France and the United States.
[Jardine:] Question 1: What does it mean to you to write at the end...
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Below, Danto reviews Duras' novella The Man Sitting in the Corridor and compares it to her earlier novel The Ravishing of Lol Stein.
In The Ravishing of Lol Stein, a 1964 novel with which Margu...
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In the following review, Grossman states that despite its unusual and sparse style, somber mood, and difficult subject matter, Summer Rain is a compelling novel.
It would be foolish to argue with Marg...
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In the following review, Munn compares The North China Lover to The Lover and argues that despite their similar subject matter The North China Lover is a more personal and a better-written account.
In...
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In the following review, Thon contends that The North China Lover is less distant and more humane than the earlier novel The Lover.
Spare and erotic, The North China Lover is not merely the story of T...
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In the following review of The North China Lover, Romaine discusses how repeating essentially the same story over again in her work allows Duras to perfect the telling of this tale.
In the hands of a ...
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In the following essay, Rava examines the attempts of Duras's female characters to create a linguistic voice and presence for themselves in the predominantly male urban milieu.
In the works of ...
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In the following introduction to her book Marguerite Duras: Writing on the Body, Willis focuses on The Lover in her examination of Duras's “transgressive” texts.
Long a respected ...
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In the following essay, Cismaru analyzes Des journées entières dans les arbres, praising Duras's realistic depiction of “the world of the dispossessed.”
The year 195...
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In the following essay, Schuster discusses female sexuality and subjugation in “The Boa.”
In 1954, Duras published four short stories under the title Des Journées entières ...
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In the following essay, Reid discusses the ways in which the café setting represents an “ideal inner space” in Duras's fiction.
… écrire, c'est ç...
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Duras, Marguerite
Marguerite Duras
