Jeanne Galzy
| Jeanne Galzy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Louise Jeanne Baraduc 1883 Montpellier, France |
| Died | 1977 (aged 93–94) Montpellier, France |
| Resting place | Protestant cemetery of Montpellier |
| Occupation | novelist, biographer |
| Language | French |
| Nationality | French |
| Genre | Lesbian fiction, regional fiction, biography, drama |
| Notable works | Les Allongés |
| Notable awards | Prix Femina |
Jeanne Galzy (1883–1977), born Louise Jeanne Baraduc, was a French novelist and biographer from Montpellier. She was a long-time member of the jury for the Prix Femina. Largely forgotten today, she was known as a regional author, but also wrote three novels early in her career that explore lesbian topics; she has been referred to as one of the "pioneers in the writing of lesbian desire and despair."
Galzy was born in 1883 in Montpellier, France, the daughter of a wholesaler and an unpublished poet. She grew up in a Protestant environment and went to better schools, exceedingly rare for a young girl of the time. She studied at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in Sèvres and passed the agrégation competitive exam.
In 1915 she gained a position teaching at the boys' lycée in Montpellier; she was the first woman to teach at the school and replaced a man who had died in the trenches of World War I. While teaching, she contracted tuberculosis, and went to convalesce in Berck. This experience led her to write Les Allongés, which received the Prix Femina in 1923. She went back to teaching, but after suffering a relapse devoted her life to writing.
Having published five novels, a play, and having received a number of literary awards, in 1929 she delivered a novel of lesbian love between a teacher and a student, L'Initiatrice aux mains vides, translated in English as Burnt Offering and the winner of the 1930 Prix Brentano (which earned her $1000 and a translation of her book in English).Jeunes Filles en serre chaude (1934) aimed to be the portrait of the students of the École normale supérieure in Sèvres; the school was reputed to be a "breeding ground of homosexual relationship," and had earlier been the subject of a novel exploring same-sex desire, Les Sevriennes (1900) by Gabrielle Reval. Galzy was a member of the jury for the Prix Femina for more than five decades.
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