French Literature Reviews - 2026
Y. Buin, Céline ; D. S. Schiffer, Oscar Wilde (Folio biographies)
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs
Yves Buin, CÉLINE. Paris: Gallimard, coll. "Folio biographies", 2009, 480 p.
- ISBN 9782070344970
- 8.60 €
Publisher's description:
“I have to write everything down for you! I'm writing you down! They'll buy my books later, much later when I'm dead, to study what the first tremors of the end were like, and the baseness of human nature, and the explosions from the depths of the soul... They didn't know, they will know!”
Famous at thirty-eight upon the publication of his very first book, Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) remains a highly controversial writer to this day. Hated by some who see in him only a virulent anti-Semite and an extreme nihilist, he is idolized by others who choose to focus exclusively on the fundamentally innovative character of his literature. Yves Buin offers a critical approach, demonstrating how light and darkness can coexist. A physician of the poor, anti-communist, and pacifist, Céline—who claimed the writer's right to invent his own biography—constantly faked and lied, yet paid his dues in full, “laid his life on the line,” and built a body of work that establishes him as one of the greatest classical prose writers of the 20th century.
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Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, OSCAR WILDE. Paris: Gallimard, coll. "Folio biographies", 2009, 432 p.
- ISBN 9782070340989
- 8.60 €
Publisher's description:
“People thought it was wrong of me to invite the low-lifes of society to dinner and to take pleasure in their company. But these beings, from the perspective through which the artist in me approached them, were rich with suggestions and exquisite stimulation. It was feasting with panthers.”
A flamboyant aesthete and brilliant orator, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) actively and eagerly contributed to the construction of his own myth during his lifetime. A scandalous dandy, the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those exceptional figures who, through the intensity of their lives and the modernity of their work, remain our contemporaries long after their death. A successful playwright yet a poète maudit, condemned to two years in prison for the crime of homosexuality following a sensational trial, he died in poverty. This biography traces the tragic and fabulous destiny of a man who claimed to have “squandered his own genius, and taken a strange pleasure in wasting eternal youth.”
The Folio biographies collection provides portraits of cultural figures, bridging historical documentation and narrative storytelling. By examining the lives of Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Oscar Wilde, these volumes engage with the tension between an author's public persona and their private reality. Céline, known for his stylistic innovations and controversial political stances, is presented through his identity as a physician and a writer. Readers interested in the evolution of 20th-century French prose and the complexities of literary reputation may find these biographical perspectives relevant.
Oscar Wilde occupies a distinct place in late 19th-century literature, embodying the aesthetic movement and the figure of the dandy. His trajectory from a celebrated playwright to a prisoner highlights the social and moral constraints of his era, a theme central to the study of his life and works like The Picture of Dorian Gray. These biographies situate their subjects within their respective historical contexts, tracing how both authors navigated public scrutiny and personal tragedy.