Evelyne Bloch-Dano

Presentation

Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Evelyne Bloch-Dano studied English and modern literature.

With an advanced degree in modern literature, she has taught in schools in the Paris region since 2000.

In conjunction with her teaching career, she has published numerous books and articles on literature, both scholarly articles and essays. She is also a specialist on writers’ homes.

The biographies she’s written are highly esteemed, and she has been the recipient of prestigious literary prizes.

Thus Madame Zola, published in 1997, won Elle Magazine’s readers’ Grand Prize, Flora Tristan la Femme-Messie won the François Billetdoux Prize in 2001 and Madame Proust received the Renaudet Prize for an essay in 2004, as well as the literary prize from the Circle of the Union and the prize bestowed by the Proustian Literary Circle of Cabourg-Balbec.

Her most recent book, The Biographer, which brings together, in an original work, her mother’s own biography and that of actress Romy Schneider, has been a hit in France since its publication in February, 2007.

Lectures

Evelyne Bloch-Dano suggests choosing between two talks:

A Lecture : Madame Proust

When asked «What would be the worst thing that could happen to you?» Marcel Proust answered, «to become separated from Mamma.»

But do we really know who «Mamma» was? Madame Proust is the first biography to be written exclusively about her. My presentation proposes to provide a picture of this remarkable, cultivated woman who was born into an englightened middle-class Jewish family of the 19th century, and who was trilingual and a talented musician.

This is a tableau, then, of a social milieu and of a family: Marcel Proust’s maternal anscestors, who came from Alsace and Germany. It is also, however, an intimate portrait that of Jeanne Weil (1849-1905) and Professor Adrien Proust, a medical doctor of some renown, who came from a modest Catholic background. Through their union we can get a glimpse of French Jewish families' integration into society. The Prousts were also the archetype of a Parisian bourgeois couple of the times.

But the essential aspect of the presentation will reside in the depiction of the passionate relationship that Jeanne Proust maintained with her oldest son, in the light of correspondence and passages cited from In Search of Lost Time. I’ll insist, in particular, on her role in the formation of Marcel’s tastes, ideas, and personality. Having a lot of faith in his genius, she never let up in making sure he acquired the literary discipline needed by any great artist. It was, however, only after the death of his mother that Marcel Proust would find the strength to fully take the reins of his masterpiece and bring it to a place of excellence.

Depending on the type of audience, whether it be colege studnes or the general public, or those who are familiar with Proust's work or not, I will accordingly shed light upon the links between Jeanne Proust and the character of the mother (and that of the grandmother) of the Narrator of In Search of Lost Time. I will read from selections taken from the correspondence between Jeanne Proust and Marcel as well as from passages from the work, again chosen with the particular audience in mind.

An Informal Reading with Q & A

during which Eveline Bloch-Dano will read passages from the writings, with the intention of igniting spontaneous interaction afterwards with the audience on, among other subjects, her work as a writer and, in particular, the work of a biographer and the genre of biography.

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