Obituary: Marguerite Duras
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.In his obituary on Marguerite Duras [4 March], John Calder says that Robert Antelme - Duras's husband - was a rich businessman, and that Antelme is portrayed in Moderato Cantabile, writes Anthony Rudolf. These are two serious errors of commission. Antelme was not a rich businessman and was not the model for the husband in that fictional work.
In fact Robert Antelme worked for years as an editor at Gallimard. Calder also fails to signal the fact that the husband of Duras can himself be described as a great writer, albeit on the strength of one book: this is L'espece humaine. As recounted in Duras's La Douleur and elsewhere, Antelme was an active member of the Resistance and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944. He was rescued from Dachau by Francois Mitterrand.
Antelme's masterpiece, published in 1947 - the same year as Primo Levi's If this is a man, and echoing its title - finally appeared in American translation in 1992, entitled The Human Race. The book is mainly about his time in Gandersheim, a forced labour camp, and is the only non-fiction work on the camps to equal Levi's book.
Marguerite Duras, with a large body of work of great originality and distinction, may be the more important writer but no single text of hers matches Antelme's phenomenology of servitude transcended. It is one of the great neglected books of the century outside its native country.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments