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French feminist writer Benoite Groult dies, aged 96

Tributes poured in Tuesday for French feminist novelist and essay-writer Benoîte Groult, who died overnight at the age of 96. Groult became famous in the 1960s after, by her own admission, "taking some time to awaken".

French writer Benoîte Groult, who died on Monday 20 June 2016
French writer Benoîte Groult, who died on Monday 20 June 2016 AFP
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National Assembly chairman Claude Bartolone hailed a committed feminist who was "involved in all the great battles for women's rights" in a statement, while Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem declared that she "opened the field to a woman's writing and point of view on women's condition".

Two former ministers also paid their tributes - Groult had an "amazing" experience of the 20th century, according to former justice minister Christiane Taubira; she was a "moving novelist and analyst of the feminine condition and of time passing", according to former culture minister Aurélie Filipetti.

Right-wing MP Nathalie Kosciusco-Morizet called her a "great writer", whose "struggles have lasted".

Groult was born to a well-off family in Paris - her father was a furniture designer and her mother a fashion designer, whose friends included painter Marie Laurencin.

She started writing with her younger sister, Flora, and did not publish her first novel on her own until the age of 52.

Having become a feminist in 1968, she published the essay Ainsi soit-elle, the first book to denounce female genital mutilation, at the age of 55.

It sold a million copies and was translated into several languages.

"I felt like a second-class citizen, absent from the world, and, yes, I took some time to awaken," she commented later.

In later life she took up the cause of the "right to die with dignity" .

In her 2008 biography, Mon évasion, she said she had "the feeling of having been through an interminable obstacle course".

She died in her sleep at her home in the south of France on Monday night.

Benoîte Groult - a life in dates
  • 31 January 1920: Born in Paris to André Groult and Nicole Poiret;
  • 1943: Having obtained a literature degree marries Blaise Landon;
  • 1944: Blaise Landon dies;
  • 1946: Marries journalist Georges de Caune, with whom she has two daugnters, Blandine and Lison, starts work in broadcasting;
  • 1948: Georges de Caune dies;
  • 1952: Marries writer Paul Guimard, with whom she has a daughter, Constance;
  • 1953: Leaves full-time broadcasting;
  • 1958: Publishes Journal à quatre mains with her sister Flora;
  • 1965: Publishes Le Féminin pluriel with her sister Flora;
  • 1967: Publishes Il était deux fois with her sister Flora;
  • 1972: Publishes first novel alone La Part des choses;
  • 1975: Publishes Ainsi soit-elle, a feminist essay;
  • 1978: Starts feminist monthly F Magazine with Clauden Servan-Schreiber;
  • 1982-2013: Member of the Prix Femina jury;
  • 1983: Publishes Les Trois quarts du temps;
  • 1984-1986: Chairs committee to feminise job designations and professional titles;
  • 1986: Publishes Olympe de Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the female Citizen (1791) for the first time in its entirety;
  • 1988: Publishes Les Vaisseaux du cœur;
  • 2006: Publishes La Touche étoile;
  • 2008: Publishes her biography, Mon évasion;
  • 2013: Publishes biography of Olympe de Gouges;
  • 20 June 2016: Dies in Hyères, south-east France.
     

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