Zoé Oldenbourg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
'Zoé B. Oldenbourg' (1916 - 2002) was an– historian and novelist.
Zoe B.Oldenbourg was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. With her family, she escaped to Paris at the age of nine, and her education and her works have been completely French. A genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages, she combined both in her first novel, 'The World is Not Enough', a vast panorama of the twelfth century which immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historial novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny by Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well. Mme. Oldenbourg married in 1947 and had two children.
A specialist in mediæval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars, she turned this knowledge to the production of several non-fiction works and novels. Prominent among her novels are Argile et Cendres, La Pierre Angulaire and Les Brûlés (published in English as The World is Not Enough, The Cornerstone, and Destiny of Fire).
[edit] Works
- Argile et Cendres (1946).
- La Pierre Angulaire (prix Femina 1953)
- Le Bûcher de Montségur (1959) (non-fiction, published in English as Massacre at Montségur).
- Les Brûlés (1960).
- Les Cités Charnelles (1961).
- Les Croisades (1965) (non-fiction, published in English as The Crusades).
- La Joie des Pauvres (1970).
- Visages d'un Autoportrait (1977).
- Le Procès du Rêve (1982).
