Célia Bertin (1920–2014)

Célia Bertin was born in Paris to a bourgeois French family. After graduating from the Lycée Fenelon, she earned a bachelor of arts degree at the Sorbonne, writing a thesis on the influence of the Russian novel on contemporary English literature. At age 20, at the start of World War II, she interrupted her studies to participate in the French Resistance to the Nazis by serving as an interpreter and guide for the British intelligence service. She later wrote about this period in her book Women under Occupation (1993). In 1946, she published her first novel, La Parade des Impies (The Parade of the Unholy), a great success that launched her career as a writer. A few years later, she won the prestigious Prix Renaudot for her novel La Dernière Innocence (The Last Innocence, 1953). in 1951, she co-founded and directed with Pierre de Lescure the literary journal Roman, devoted to the novel. She also worked for Le Figaro, writing about the status of women and high fashion, and as a translator of English and Italian works. She also wrote successful biographies, including those of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (1967), Princess Marie Bonaparte (1982) -- later adapted into a 2004 French film -- and Jean Renoir (1994). In the 1990s, she married Jerry Reich, an architect. She became a visiting scholar at the Harvard Center for European Studies and also was a writer-in-residence at several universities, including Tufts. She was decorated with the Legion of Honor and the French Order of Arts and Letters.