Jocelyne François

François was born in Nancy as the eldest of three children; early on in her schooling she gave evidence of great memory and a gift for writing. After six years in Catholic boarding school, where she met her future partner Marie-Claire Pichaud, she studied philosophy in Nancy and married, more or less for convenience: the two oldest children of this marriage were raised by their father, the youngest by François and her partner. Her partner is a painter, whose artistic sensitivities greatly influenced François, who embarked on a career as a writer. A turning moment was meeting poet René Char in the 1960s. François and Pichaud lived in Saumane-de-Vaucluse for twenty-five years[3] before moving to Paris[1] in 1985, amid health problems.[3]

Her first novel was Les Bonheurs, published in 1970 with Laffont and republished in 1982[4] with Mercure de France, which publishes all her work. She received the Prix Femina for Joue-nous "España" in 1980,[1][3][5] and the Prix Erckmann-Chatrian for Portrait d’homme au crépuscule in 2001.

Besides novels, she also writes poetry and experimental prose. She began publishing her diaries; in 2009, the fourth volume (covering 2001-2007) was released.[5]

In the French canon, François's work and success is said to testify to the viability and strength of gay and lesbian literature,[6] and adds to the corpus of a feminist, radical lesbian literature begun by Violette Leduc, Monique Wittig, and Christiane Rochefort.[7][8] Her winning the Prix Femina helped signal that literature's "institutional consecration."[6] Alongside Jeanne Galzy and Mireille Best, she is credited with creating "images of lesbians [which] challenge both the dominant heterosexist ideology and the limiting idea of the lesbian novel as manifesto in order to offer new visions of sexual identity."[9] Love, or the "ardeur [de l'amour] qui structure les jours," is an overarching theme in all her work, poetry or prose.[3]

Les Bonheurs (1970) is the first of a series of five partly autobiographical novels (even a "lesbian memoir"[10]) that explore lesbianism, relationships, marriage, and love. It is "a study of love in a hostile context, of lesbian love in a heterosexual world, trying to survive alongside religious belief dictated by a homophobic church."[4] The novel's main characters, Sarah and Anne, have loved each other since they met, at age 16,[10] but Anne breaks off their relationship after being told to do so by her priest. Both have relationships with men as well: Anne marries, and Sarah has an affair with a married man. After ten years the two get back together again.

Les Amantes (1978) picks up a few years after Les Bonheurs left off. Sarah (a painter) lives with the unnamed narrator (a poet) in Provence. Both are also potters. There is a child, and two other children visit for school holidays. A male friend offsets this balance, but the narrator's devotion to Sarah is absolute. The man's desire, however, leaves no room for anyone else, and destroys the relationship.[4]

In Joue-nous "España" (1980), "based on the author's childhood and adolescence," François investigates the influence of a strict Catholic education on a child's understanding of religion, love, and the world.[4] The novel was translated into English as Play Us España, and referred to as an "[excellent] young lesbian's autobiography."[11]

Histoire de Volubilis (1986), like Les Amantes, features a writer and a painter, Cécile and Elisabeth. Their relationship is threatened by the machinations of a psychologist and her husband, and rendered even more difficult by the mental problems experienced by Cécile's (grown) children.[4]

La femme sans tombe (1995) is the last of the five novels; its publication was apparently delayed because of a sickness on the part of the author. Some of the autobiographical aspects have been clarified by the intermediate publication of Le Cahier vert, 1961-1989 (1990), a journal of the author's childhood, which includes an account of her long relationship with a Marie-Claire Pichaud—a painter and a potter—versions of whom inhabit the novels.[4]