Edmonde Charles-Roux (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1920 – Marseille, 2016) was a French writer who first made her name in fashion journalism before turning to fiction and biography. Her novel Oublier Palerme won the Prix Goncourt in 1966 and remains her best-known work, while her later books on Coco Chanel and the traveller Isabelle Eberhardt brought her a wide readership.
The daughter of a diplomat who had chaired the Suez Canal Company, she grew up in a comfortable household. During the Second World War she served as a volunteer nurse with the French Foreign Legion. She was wounded at Verdun while helping a legionnaire, and afterwards worked as a nurse in the Resistance. Her wartime service earned her the Croix de Guerre and, in 1945, the Legion of Honour.
After the war she joined the newly founded magazine Elle in 1946, then moved to the French edition of Vogue in 1948, becoming its editor-in-chief in 1954. She left the magazine in 1966 after a dispute over putting a Black woman on its cover. That same year she published Oublier Palerme, and Francesco Rosi adapted it for the cinema in 1990 as The Palermo Connection.
Her writing moved between novels and biographies. She wrote about Coco Chanel, about Isabelle Eberhardt, and about her Sicilian childhood, and she produced photographic books on her husband, Gaston Defferre, mayor of Marseille, whom she married in 1973, and on the couturier. She also wrote librettos for several ballets by Roland Petit.
She was elected to the Académie Goncourt in 1983 and served as its president from 2002. Her legacy lies chiefly in her Palermo novel and her biographies, which introduced many readers to women and unconventional figures in French cultural history.
Key works
- Oublier Palerme (1966): Goncourt-winning novel set in Sicily, published in English as To Forget Palermo.
- Elle, Adrienne (1971): novel drawing on the figure of her mother.
- L'Irrégulière ou mon itinéraire Chanel (1974): biography of Coco Chanel, based on conversations with the couturier.
- Une enfance sicilienne (1981): novel about a Sicilian childhood.
- Un désir d'Orient (1989): biography of Isabelle Eberhardt, first volume.
Curiosities
Honorary vivandière
The Foreign Legion's regiment awarded her the honorary title of vivandière, a traditional distinction for women who accompanied the troops.
A prize and a film
Three months after leaving Vogue she published the novel that won the Goncourt, and in 1990 Francesco Rosi adapted it to film.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.