https://noumenapedia.net/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Gabrielle_WittkopGabrielle Wittkop - Revision history2026-10-29T18:30:17ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.44.0https://noumenapedia.net/index.php?title=Gabrielle_Wittkop&diff=3890&oldid=prevDeleatur yhe: Created page2026-09-06T07:19:17Z<p>Created page</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|French writer and translator}}<br />
{{Infobox writer<br />
| name = Gabrielle Wittkop<br />
| image = Gabrielle Wittkop.png<br />
| alt = <br />
| birth_name = Gabrielle Ménardeau<br />
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|05|27}}<br />
| birth_place = [[Nantes]], France<br />
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2002|12|22|1920|05|27}}<br />
| death_place = [[Frankfurt]], Germany<br />
| occupation = {{hlist|Writer|translator}}<br />
| language = {{hlist|French|German}}<br />
| genre = {{hlist|[[Novel]]s|[[poetry]]}}<br />
| notable_works = ''[[The Necrophiliac]]'' (1972)<br />
| spouse = Justus Franz Wittkop<br />
}}<br />
'''Gabrielle Wittkop''' (née '''Ménardeau'''; 27 May 1920 – 22 December 2002) was a French writer and translator.<br />
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== Life and career ==<br />
Gabrielle Wittkop was born on 27 May 1920 in [[Nantes]]. During the [[Nazi occupation of France|Nazi occupation]] of Paris, she met a German [[Desertion|deserter]], [[Justus Wittkop]], whom she hid from the Nazis. He was homosexual and twenty years older than her, but they married in a union she called an "intellectual alliance."<ref>{{Cite news|date=2001-01-19|title=Gabrielle Wittkop, sulfureuse et convenable|language=fr|work=Le Monde.fr|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2001/01/19/gabrielle-wittkop-sulfureuse-et-convenable_4147484_1819218.html|access-date=2021-02-12}}</ref> In 1946, after the end of the [[Second World War]] she moved with him to [[Frankfurt]] where she would stay for the rest of her life.<ref name="independent">{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/gabrielle-wittkop-137419.html|last=Kirkup|first=James|title=Gabrielle Wittkop: Free-thinking writer of scabrous wit|work=[[The Independent]], London|date=2002-12-27|accessdate=2019-05-03}}</ref><br />
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Her first book on the German writer [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]] was published in German in 1966. Her first novel, a [[transgressive fiction|transgressive]] erotic drama about a [[Necrophilia|necrophiliac]] antique dealer, ''Le Nécrophile'' (''[[The Necrophiliac]]'', 1972), was published in 1972 by [[Régine Desforges]] when she was 52.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2011-07-21|title=The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop – review|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/21/necrophiliac-gabrielle-wittkop-review|access-date=2021-02-12|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> She wrote several highly regarded novels and travelogues, as well as translating works by [[Theodor W. Adorno|Theodor Adorno]], [[Uwe Johnson]], [[Wolfgang Hildesheimer]] and [[Peter Handke]] into French. She also contributed to the art pages of the ''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]''.<br />
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Her husband committed [[suicide]] in 1986 after he was diagnosed with [[Parkinson's disease]] and she wrote an account of it in ''Hemlock'' (1988). In 2002, she herself committed suicide in Frankfurt at the age of 82, after she was diagnosed with [[lung cancer]].<ref name="independent" /><br />
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Although popular in France and Germany, Wittkop's works were not widely available in English until the 2010s. ''The Necrophiliac'' was translated in a Canadian edition by [[Don Bapst]] in 2011, and in a Danish edition by [[Christina Ytzen]] in 2018. English translations of ''Les Départs exemplaires'' ''(Exemplary Departures,'' 1995'')'' and ''Sérénissime Assassinat'' (''Murder Most Serene'', 2001) were published by [[Wakefield Press (US)|Wakefield Press]] in 2015.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Authors|url=https://www.wakefieldpress.com/authors.html|access-date=2021-02-12|website=www.wakefieldpress.com}}</ref><br />
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== English translations ==<br />
* ''[[The Necrophiliac]]'', published by ECW Press. {{ISBN|978-1550229431}}<br />
* ''Exemplary Departures'', published by Wakefield Press. {{ISBN|978-1-939663-13-9}}<br />
* ''Murder Most Serene'', published by Wakefield Press. {{ISBN|978-1-939663-14-6}}<br />
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==References==<br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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{{Authority control}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittkop, Gabrielle}}<br />
[[Category:1920 births]]<br />
[[Category:2002 suicides]]<br />
[[Category:2002 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century French translators]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century French women non-fiction writers]]<br />
[[Category:Suicides in Germany]]<br />
[[Category:Writers from Nantes]]<br />
[[Category:Writers from Frankfurt]]<br />
[[Category:Hoffmann scholars]]<br />
[[Category:Female suicides]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century French women novelists]]</div>Deleatur yhe