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{{short description|20th century French writer and lawyer}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=August 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Nathalie Sarraute
| image = Nathalie Sarraute - portrait de Fernand Michaud - btv1b103295272.jpg
| caption = Nathalie Sarraute (1986)
| imagesize =
| birth_name = Natalia Ilinichna Tcherniak
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1900|07|18|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Ivanovo-Voznesensk]], [[Russian Empire]] (now [[Russia]])
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1999|10|19|1900|07|18|df=y}}
| death_place = [[16th arrondissement of Paris]], [[France]]
| education = [[Lycée Fénelon, Paris|Lycée Fénelon]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Paris]]<br>[[University of Oxford]]
| spouse = [[Raymond Sarraute]]
| children = 3, including [[Claude Sarraute]]
| occupation = {{hlist|Writer|Lawyer}}
}}
{{French literature sidebar}}
'''Nathalie Sarraute''' ({{IPA|fr|natali saʁot|lang}}; born '''Natalia Ilinichna Tcherniak''' ({{langx|ru|Ната́лья Ильи́нична Черня́к}}); {{OldStyleDate|18 July|1900|5 July}} – 19 October 1999) was a French writer and lawyer.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jefferson|first=Ann|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IdLLDwAAQBAJ|title=Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between|date=2020-07-21|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-20192-4|language=en}}</ref> She was nominated in [[1969 Nobel Prize in Literature|1969]] for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] by [[Nobel Committee for Literature|Nobel Committee]] member [[Lars Gyllensten]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=15187|title=Nomination archive – Nathalie Sarraute|access-date=10 January 2024|website=nobelprize.org}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Sarraute was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now [[Ivanovo]]), 300 km north-east of [[Moscow]]. She was the daughter of Pauline (née Chatounovsky), a writer, and Ilya Tcherniak, a chemist.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.bookrags.com/biography/nathalie-sarraute-dlb/|title=Nathalie Sarraute Summary|access-date=31 July 2019|via=bookrags.com}}</ref> She was of Jewish origin. Following the divorce of her parents, she spent her childhood shuttled between France and Russia. In 1909 she moved to Paris with her father. Sarraute studied law and literature at the prestigious [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]], having a particular fondness for [[20th-century literature|contemporary literature]] and the works of [[Marcel Proust]] and [[Virginia Woolf]], who greatly affected her conception of the novel, then later studied history at the [[University of Oxford]] and sociology in [[Berlin]], before passing the French bar exam (1926–1941) and becoming a lawyer.

In 1925, she married Raymond Sarraute, a fellow lawyer, with whom she had three daughters. In 1932 she wrote her first book, ''[[Tropismes]],'' a series of brief sketches and memories that set the tone for her entire ''oeuvre''. The novel was first published in 1939, although the impact of World War II stunted its popularity. In 1941, Sarraute was barred from working as a lawyer as a result of the Vichy regime's antisemitic laws. During this time, she went into hiding and made arrangements to divorce her husband in an effort to protect him (although they eventually stayed together).

Sarraute died at the age of 99 in 1999 in Paris, France. Her daughter, the journalist [[Claude Sarraute]], was married to [[Académie Française|French Academician]] [[Jean-François Revel]].

==Career==
[[Image:sarruteenfance.jpg|left|thumb|150px|''Enfance'' (''Childhood''). The cover of Sarraute's autobiography, published in 1983]]
Sarraute dedicated herself to literature, with her most prominent work being ''Portrait of a Man Unknown'' (1948), a work applauded by [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], who famously referred to it as an "anti-novel" and who also contributed a foreword. Despite such high critical praise, however, the work only drew notice from literary insiders, as did her follow-up, ''Martereau''.

Sarraute's essay ''The Age of Suspicion'' (''L'Ère du soupçon'', 1956) served as a prime manifesto for the [[nouveau roman]] literary movement, alongside [[Alain Robbe-Grillet]]'s ''For a New Novel''. Sarraute became, along with Robbe-Grillet, [[Claude Simon]], [[Marguerite Duras]], and [[Michel Butor]], one of the figures most associated with the rise of this new trend in writing, which sought to radically transform traditional narrative models of character and plot. Sarraute was awarded the ''[[Prix Formentor|Prix international de littérature]]'' for her novel ''The Golden Fruits'' in 1963, which led to greater popularity and exposure for the author. That same year, Sarraute also began working as a dramatist, authoring a total of six plays, including ''Le Silence'' (1963), ''Le Mensonge'' (1965) and ''Elle est là'' (1993). As a result of Sarraute's growing popularity and public profile, she was invited to speak at a number of literary events in her native country of Russia, in France, and abroad.

Sarraute's work, including the novels ''Between Life and Death'' (1968), ''The Use of Speech'' (1980) and ''You Don't Love Yourself'' (1989), have been translated into more than 30 languages. Her work has often been referred to as "difficult," as a result of her experimental style and abandonment of traditional literary conventions. Sarraute celebrated the death of the literary "character" and placed her primary emphasis on the creation of a faithful depiction of psychological phenomena, as in her novella ''The Golden Fruits'', consisting entirely of interior monologues, and the novel ''The Planetarium'' (1959), which focuses on a young man's obsession with moving into his aunt's apartment. The constantly shifting perspectives and points of view in Sarraute's work serve to undermine the author's hand, while at the same time embracing the incoherence of lived experience.

In contrast to the relative difficulty of Sarraute's novels, her memoir ''Childhood'' is considered an easier read. Penned when she was over eighty years old, Sarraute's autobiography is hardly a straightforward memoir, as she challenges her own capacity to accurately recall her past throughout the work. In the 1980s, the autobiography was adapted into a one-act [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] play starring [[Glenn Close]]. The issues with memory which Sarraute highlighted in her autobiography carried through to her last novel, ''Here'', published in 1995, in which the author explores a range of existential issues relating to the formlessness of both individual and social reality.

[[Agnès Varda]] dedicated her 1985 film ''[[Vagabond (1985 film)|Sans toit ni loi]]'' (Vagabonde) to her.

==Bibliography==
[[Image:sarrauteplanet.jpg|right|thumb|200px|''Le planétarium'' (''The Planetarium''). The cover of Sarraute's 1959 novel]]

=== Novels ===

* ''[[Tropismes]]'' (1939; revised 1957). ''Tropisms'', trans. [[Maria Jolas]] with ''The Age of Suspicion'' (1963).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Sarraute, Nathalie | title=Tropisms; and, The age of suspicion, tr. | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/209651359 | access-date=18 March 2024}}</ref>
* ''Portrait d’un inconnu'' (1948; revised 1956). ''Portrait of a Man Unknown'', trans. Maria Jolas (1958).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Nathalie Sarraute | title=Portrait of a man unknown a novel | publication-date=1958 | publisher=New York G. Braziller | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11427393 | access-date=18 March 2024}}</ref>
* ''Martereau'' (1953). Trans. Maria Jolas (1959).
* ''Le Planétarium'' (1959). ''The Planetarium'', trans. Maria Jolas (1960).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Nathalie Sarraute | title=Le planétarium | publication-date=1984 | publisher=[Paris] Gallimard | isbn=978-2-07-036092-5}}</ref>
*''Les Fruits d'or'' (1963). ''The Golden Fruits'', trans. Maria Jolas (1964).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Sarraute, Nathalie | title=Les fruits d'or | publication-date=1963 | publisher=Gallimard | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6320866 | access-date=18 March 2024}}</ref>
* ''Entre la vie et la mort'' (1968). ''Between Life and Death'', trans. Maria Jolas (1969).
* ''Vous les entendez ?'' (1972). ''Do You Hear Them?'', trans. Maria Jolas (1973).
* ''« disent les imbéciles »'' (1976). ''"fools say"'', trans. Maria Jolas (1977).
* ''L’Usage de la parole'' (1980). ''The Use of Speech'', trans. [[Barbara Wright (translator)|Barbara Wright]] (1980).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Nathalie Sarraute | title=L'Usage De La ParoleMass Market Paperback | publication-date=1983 | publisher=Editions Flammarion | isbn=978-2-07-037435-9}}</ref>
*''Enfance'' (1983). ''Childhood'', trans. Barbara Wright (1984).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Sarraute, Nathalie | author2=Kaplan, Alice Yaeger | author3=EBSCOhost | title=Childhood | publication-date=2013 | publisher=Chicago London The University of Chicago Press | isbn=978-1-299-13896-4}}</ref>
* ''Tu ne t’aimes pas'' (1989). ''You Don’t Love Yourself'', trans. Barbara Wright (1990).
*''Ici'' (1995). ''Here'', trans. Barbara Wright (1997).
*''Ouvrez'' (1997). ''Open''.

=== Plays ===
*''Le Silence'' (1964). ''Silence'', trans. Maria Jolas with ''The Lie'' (1969).
*''Le Mensonge'' (1966). ''The Lie'', trans. Maria Jolas with ''Silence'' (1969).
*''Isma, ou ce qui s’appelle rien'' (1970). ''Izzum''.
*''C’est beau'' (1975). ''It’s Beautiful''.
*''Elle est là'' (1978). ''It Is There.''
*''Collected Plays'' (1980). Translated by Maria Jolas and Barbara Wright. Includes ''It Is There, It’s Beautiful, Izzum, The Lie, Silence.''
*''Pour un oui ou pour un non'' (1981). ''For No Good Reason'' (1985).

=== Essays ===

* ''L'Ère du soupçon'' (1956). ''The Age of Suspicion: Essays on the Novel'', trans. Maria Jolas with ''Tropisms'' (1963).

==See also==
*[[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|''Le Monde'''s 100 Books of the Century]], a list which includes ''Tropisms''

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*[[Jean-Louis de Rambures]], "Comment travaillent les écrivains", Paris 1978 (interview with N. Sarraute, in French)
* A. S. Newman (Anthony Stewart Newman), ''Une Poésie des discours: essai sur les romans de Nathalie Sarraute'', Geneva: Droz, 1976.
* Heinz-Norbert Jocks: ''Das Ungesehene ist nichts als das noch nicht Gesehene," Un entretien Nathalie Sarraute.''En:''Basler Zeitung.'' 22.Septembre 1994, No.221, p. 45.
*{{cite news| last = Guppy| first = Shusha and Jason Weiss| title = Nathalie Sarraute, The Art of Fiction| newspaper = The Paris Review| language =| date = Spring 1990| url = https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2341/the-art-of-fiction-no-115-nathalie-sarraute}}
*{{cite journal | jstor=2929335 | title=Nathalie Sarraute: The Use of Speech | last1=Eigenmann | first1=Eric | journal=Yale French Studies | date=1988 | pages=7–10 | doi=10.2307/2929335 }}

== External links ==
{{commons category-inline}}
*{{cite journal | url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2341/the-art-of-fiction-no-115-nathalie-sarraute| title=Nathalie Sarraute, The Art of Fiction No. 115| author= Shusha Guppy, Jason Weiss| date=Spring 1990 | journal=The Paris Review | volume=Spring 1990| issue=114}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070222095901/http://www.adpf.asso.fr/adpf-publi/folio/sarraute/reperes.html Brief biography] {{in lang|fr}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721194031/http://auteurs.contemporain.info/nathalie-sarraute/ Critical bibliography (Auteurs.contemporain.info)] {{in lang|fr}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090725051640/http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2009/04/spotlight-on-nathalie-sarrautes.html Spotlight on ... Nathalie Sarraute's 'The Planetarium']

{{Portal bar|Russia|Biography}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarraute, Nathalie}}
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1999 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Ivanovo]]
[[Category:People from Vladimir Governorate]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian Jews]]
[[Category:Russian women novelists]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France]]
[[Category:White Russian emigrants to France]]
[[Category:Jewish novelists]]
[[Category:Jewish women novelists]]
[[Category:Jewish French writers]]
[[Category:French women dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian women writers]]
[[Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Jewish women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century French women novelists]]
[[Category:Signatories of the Manifesto of the 121]]
[[Category:20th-century women dramatists and playwrights]]

Nathalie Sarraute - Revision history

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