FINAS, Lucette 1921-

(Lucette Renée Finas)

PERSONAL: Born July 13, 1921, in Grenoble, Isére, France; daughter of René Jean and Louise Augustine (Payen) Finas. Education: University of Paris, earned degree, 1947.

ADDRESSES: Home—56 Blvd. Beaumarchais, 75011, Paris, France.

CAREER: University of Paris VIII, Vincennes, France, professor, 1969–88; Collège International de Philosophie, Paris, France, program director, 1992–98. Visiting Fulbright professor, New York University, biannually 1987–2000; visiting professor, Harvard University, 1999.

AWARDS, HONORS: Named officer, Palmes Academiques (France), 1978; University of Paris, honorary doctorate, 1977.

WRITINGS:

Les chaines éclatées (novel), Mercure de France (Paris, France), 1955.

L'échec (novel), Éditions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1958, translation by Ralph Manheim published as The Faithful Shepherd, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1963.

Le Meurtrion (novel), 1968.

La crue, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1972.

Donne (novel; title means "Give"), Seuil (Paris, France), 1976.

Le bruit d'Iris (essays), Flammarion (Paris, France), 1978.

La toise et le vertige (nonfiction), Des Femmes (Paris, France), 1986.

Une mère à réparer, Galilée (Paris, France), 1993.

Le toucher du rayon: Proust, Vautrin et Antinoüs (essay), Library Nizet (Paris, France), 1995.

Centrale pureté, Belin, 1999.

Précaire, Digraphe (Paris, France), 2000.

Parlez-moi de vous! (novel), Farrago-Leo Scheer, 2003.

Text as Resonance: Modern Critical Readings in Diderot, Sade, Balzac, and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, translated and introduced by Annwyl Williams, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Écarts: quatre essais à propos de Jacques Derrida, Fayard, 1973; and Simone de Beauvoir, ou, Les chemins de la liberté, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: French author and literary scholar Lucette Finas has written several novels, including L'échec, which was translated into English as The Faithful Shepherd, and Donne. She has also published several books of literary criticism, such as Le bruit d'Iris and Le toucher du rayon: Proust, Vautrin et Antinoüs. In the former, Finas collects a number of her essays analyzing the works of important French novelists and poets. Reviewing the work for World Literature Today, Jerry Aline Flieger noted that Finas leans toward deconstruction in her analyses and commented that the author is especially "adept at 'musical' readings of poems." Flieger concluded that the essay collection will "be of interest to those who would like to see one of Derrida's own texts 'deconstructed.'"

In Le toucher du rayon Finas emphasizes the experience of reading itself as she discusses the works of such writers as Marcel Proust and Honore de Balzac. Michael Tilby, writing in French Studies, described this collection of literary criticism as "demanding" and "consistently suggestive." Tilby further noted that readers of Le toucher du rayon should expect no firm conclusive statements from Finas, but that audiences will still be "rewarded with a sense of creative and critical participation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Enclitic, fall, 1982, Christian Priget, review of Le bruit d'Iris, pp. 44-49.

French Studies, Volume 52, number 2, 1998, Michael Tilby, review of Le toucher du rayon: Proust, Vautrin et Antinoüs, pp. 221-222.

Oxford Literary Review, Volume 5, numbers 1-2, 1982, Roland Barthes, "A Question of Tempo to Lucette Finas," pp. 150-153.

World Literature Today, winter, 1980, Jerry Aline Flieger, review of Le bruit d'Iris, pp. 70-71.