A Woman of the Pharisees

François Mauriac

03/2018 · Pickle Partners Publishing

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Francois Mauriac, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1952, was famous for his subtle character portraits of the French rural classes and for depicting their struggles, aspirations and traditions. The Woman of the Pharisees, which was first published in English in 1946 and became one of Mauriac’s most accomplished novels, is a penetrating evocation of the moral and religious values of a Bordeaux community. In Brigitte, we see how the ideals of love and companionship are stifled in the presence of a self-righteous woman whose austere religious principals lead her to interfere—disastrously—in the lives of others. One by one the unwitting victims fall prey to the bleakness of her “perfection.” A conscientious schoolteacher, a saintly priest, her husband and stepdaughter and an innocent schoolboy are all confronted with tragedy and upheaval. But the author’s extraordinary gift for psychological insight goes on to show how redeeming features inevitably surface from disaster. The unfolding drama is seen through the discerning eye of a young Louis—Brigitte’s stepson—whose point of view is skillfully blended into the mature and understanding adult he later becomes.

“Mauriac is one of the greatest novelists.”—The New York Times

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FRANÇOIS CHARLES MAURIAC (1885-1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the Académie française (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur in 1958.

He was born on October 11, 1885 in Bordeaux, France, and studied literature at the University of Bordeaux. Following graduation in 1905, he moved to Paris to prepare for postgraduate study at the École des Chartes. Mauriac wrote for newspapers such as Le Figaro and L’Express. A prolific writer, he published many novels, novellas, short stories and plays from 1913 and throughout the rest of his life. He published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of Charles de Gaulle. Mauriac’s complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1950 and 1956.

François Mauriac died in Paris on September 1, 1970 and was interred in the Cimetière de Vemars, Val d’Oise, France.