LITERATURE
IN FRENCH
German French Rousseau
Staël/Constant
C.F.Ramuz
Cendrars Italian Rumantsch

Timeline of Swiss Literature in French Language

Epoch Writer Lifetime Major Works
Ancien Régime

Enlightment
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (philosopher) Geneva, 1712 - France, 1778 On arts and science (1750); On the origin of inegality among human beings (1754); Nouvelle Héloise (novel, 1761); Emile (novel, 1762); Du Contrat Social (political program, 1762); confessions (1764-70)
French Revolution Anne Germaine
de Staël
Paris
1766-04-22

Paris
1817-07-14
Delphine (1802); Corinne, ou l'Italie (novel, 1807, demanded for women's rights and influenced other fiction of the era); De l'Allemagne (idealistic romantic portrait of Germany, 1810); Considérations sur la Révolution française (1818); Madame de Staël was the daughter of Swiss banker (and French minister of finance) Jacques Necker and is known for her literary salon in Paris. She was banned by Napoleon I. and her writings were forbidden.
Benjamin Constant (B. Henri C. de Rebecque, politician) Lausanne, 1767-10-25 - Paris, 1830-12-08 On power (political treaty, 1814); Adolphe (novel, 1816); Cécile (novel, published 1951)
19th century Henri-Frédéric Amiel (philosophy professor) Geneva
1821-09-27
- Geneva
1881-05-11
poems; diaries (1883/84)
20th century vernacular Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz
(the Swiss-French vernacular poet)
Lausanne, 1878-09-24 - Pully,
1947-05-23
Aline (novel); Aimé Pache, peintre vaudois; La Séparation des races; La grande Peur dans la montagne (novel, 1926); Farinet ou la fausse monnaie; Adam et Eve; Derborence; Si le Soleil ne revenait pas; La Guerre aux papiers;
Maurice Chappaz Sierre, born 1916 Lyrics (vernacular and yet classical: he was loved for that); Portrait des Valaisans en légende et en vérité (1965); Match Valais-Judée (1968). The people of canton Valais hated Chappaz for these very critical portraits revealing both their stubborn traditionalism and their unreflected faith in technological progress and tourism.
Jacques Chessex Vaud, contemporary La Confession du pasteur Burg (1967); Les Saintes Ecritures (1972); L’Ogre (1973); Les Yeux jaunes (1979); L'Imitation (1997); poems; Figures de la métamorphose ; suivi d'un Essai sur Pietro Sarto (1999); Incarnata (1999); Portrait d'une ombre (1999); Sosie d'un saint: nouvelles (2000); De l'encre et du papier (2001); Monsieur (2001); Le désir de la neige (2002); Transcendance et transgression, entretiens avec Geneviève Bridel (2002); Le Fort (2002); L'économie du ciel (2003); Marie et le chat sauvage (2003); Les têtes: portraits (2003);
20th century, international outlook Blaise Cendrars (Friedrich Ludwig [Frédéric] Sauser, bilingual) La-Chaux-de-Fonds, 1887-09-01 - Paris 1961-01-21 Lyrics (before 1925): Les Paques à New York; Prose du Transsibérien; La main coupée (1918) ; La femme et le soldat; Poèmes élastiques (poems, 1919);
Novels: L'Or [Gold] (novel, 1925, about the Life of General Sutter, a Swiss pioneer in California who lost everything in the goldrush, was regarded as scandalous in the U.S.A.); Moravagine (1926); Petits contes nègres pour les enfants des Blancs (1928); Dan Yack (autobiography, 1929); Histoires vraies [True Stories] (1937, 1938) L'homme foudroyé (autobiography, 1945); Bourlinguer (1948); Emmène-moi au bout du monde (novel, 1956, featuring Madame Thérèse)
"He rediscovered poetry for France" (André Malraux, French writer)
"He made Brasilians more Brasilian" (Gilberto Freyre)
Guy de Pourtalès    
Charles-Albert Cingria    
Albert Cohen    
Denis de Rougemont (essayist)    
Jean Starobinski (essayist)    
Post-War Poetry Gustave Roud   poems
Anne Perrier   poems
Philippe Jaccottet   poems
Alexandre Voisard   poems
Pierre-Alain Tâche   poems
Pierre Chappuis    
Sylviane Dupuis    
Anne Rothschild    
Post-War Prose and Novels Catherine Colomb    
Monique Saint-Hélier    
Alice Rivaz    
S. [Stéphanie] Corinna Bille 1912 - 1979 Théoda (1944); La Fraise noire (1968);
Jacques Mercanton    
Georges Borgeaud    
Yvette Z'Graggen    
Georges Haldas    
Agota Kristof    
Anne Cuneo    
Nicolas Bouvier    
Contemporary Etienne Barilier    
Yves Velan    
Amélie Plume    
Anne-Lise Grobéty    
Jean-Luc Benoziglio    
Daniel de Roulet    
François Debluë    
Jean-Marc Lovay    
Yves Laplace    






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