Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Belgium
Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇧🇪 Belgium • 0 views

Marguerite Yourcenar 🇧🇪

Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour (Known as "Marguerite Yourcenar")
Novelist, Essayist, First Woman Elected to the Académie Française, Memoirs of Hadrian
Born Jun 08, 1903 🇧🇪 Brussels, Belgium
Passed Away Dec 17, 1987 Bar Harbor (Mount Desert Island, Maine), United States
Lifespan 84 years old
0 views
Notice / Correction
"Humanitas: to keep one's eyes open until the end, facing destiny without illusion and without fear."

Archival Overview

Brussels-born French-Belgian literary giant who wrote Memoirs of Hadrian (1951) and The Abyss (1968), and in 1980 shattered 345 years of male exclusivity by becoming the first woman elected to the Académie Française.

Biographical Record

Born in Brussels to a French father and Belgian mother, she was educated privately at the family estate in French Flanders before moving to Maine in the United States on the eve of World War II. In 1951, she achieved global renown with Memoirs of Hadrian, a fictional meditation of astonishing psychological and historical erudition.

Her 1968 masterpiece L'Œuvre au noir (The Abyss) depicted the fictional Flemish Renaissance philosopher-physician Zeno during the Counter-Reformation in Bruges. In 1980, supported by Jean d'Ormesson, she was triumphantly inducted into the Académie Française.

Memorial Guestbook & Tributes

0 messages recorded

Leave a Respectful Tribute

No tributes recorded yet. Be the first to leave a message in honor of Marguerite Yourcenar.

Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Brookside Cemetery
Somesville (Mount Desert Island, Maine), United States
GPS: 44.3617, -68.3417
View on Memory Atlas
Archival Standards PastLegacies adheres to strict neutral biographical guidelines and legal standards of remembrance. Next-of-kin may request modifications or removal at any time via our expedited process.