Christine de Rivoyre (1921–2019)

Christine de Rivoyre, the pen name of Marie Christine Denis de Rivoyre, was born in Tarbes, in southern France. She spent part of her youth in various garrison towns to which her father François Denis de Rivoyre, a cavalry officer, was posted. She attended Catholic schools and then received a degree in English literature and American civilization from the Sorbonne. She won a scholarship to study journalism at Syracuse University in New York. This American stay would later inspire several of her novels: La Tête en fleurs (The Head in Flowers, 1960), La Glace à l'ananas (Pineapple Ice Cream, 1962), and Le Voyage à l'envers (The Journey Upside Down, 1977). Back in Paris, she worked for some time as a press secretary for the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, having met its founder-choreographer Roland Petit through her cousin. Also at this time, she began interviewing English and American artists for Le Monde, and then became literary editor for Marie Claire.
In 1966, she left Marie Claire to devote herself to her writing and only returned to journalism occasionally, notably for L'Express, Her first novel, L'Alouette au miroir (The Lark in the Mirror), published in 1955, received the Prix des Quatre Jurys and the Prix Max-Barthou in 1956 from the Académie française. Several of her subsequent novels were also adapted into films, including

La Mandarine (1957);
Les Sultans (1964/1971); and Le Petit matin (1968/1971), which won the Prix Interallié. She also won

the Prix Prince Pierre de Monaco in 1979 for her body of work and the Grand Prix de Littérature Paul Morand in 1984 and the Prix Pierre de Régnier in 1979 from the Académie française for her body of work. She was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1995.