Robert Musil (1880-1942): Austrian author of the same generation as Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka, Musil never received the same recognition as his peers despite being greatly admired by them. His minimalist plays formed the keystone of what came to be called the ''Theater of the Absurd.'' Samuel Beckett (1906-1989): English dramatist and poet, Beckett's work straddles the line between modernist and postmodernist. In poor health as a result of her lifelong alcoholism, she died on March 3, 1996, in Paris. In 1984, while recovering from alcoholism in a treatment center, Duras wrote The Lover, for which she won the Prix Goncourt in 1984. In her later life, she lived with a young homosexual writer, Yann Andrea Steiner. Duras was also an apologist for the student uprisings in Paris in 1968 and a supporter of French president Francois Mitterrand during the 1980s. Duras, wishing to attend a New York Film Festival showing of her Detruire, dit-elle, had to prove to officials her adherence to anticommunist principles. This stigmatization of communism, especially in the United States, led to trouble between Duras and American officials over a travel visa in 1969. However, after World War II, communism became closely associated with Joseph StalinвЂ™s dictatorial rule of the Soviet Union StalinвЂ™s regime was notable less for the rulerвЂ™s establishment of workersвЂ™ rights than for his frequent use of imprisonment and murder against those who disagreed with his policies. Many who joined the party during World War II did so to show their opposition to Nazi Germany as well as their support of workersвЂ™ rights. She was later dismissed from the French Communist Party in 1950 along with a number of other French intellectuals for ideological differences. She published her first novel, Les Impudents, in 1943 and went on to publish more than seventy novels, plays, screenplays, and adaptations in her lifetime. She later married Dionys Mascolo, with whom she had a son, Jean. In 1946 she divorced her first husband, Robert Antelme, whom she had married in 1939. She became a member of the French Communist Party, one of the main supporters of the French Resistance. Duras became a member of the French Resistance who opposed the German occupation, working with Francois Mitterrand. At that time, France was invaded by German forces, resulting in the German occupation of much of France, with the rest of the country remaining вЂвЂfreeвЂ™вЂ™ under a provisional government approved by the Germans and based in the city of Vichy. She worked as a secretary for the Ministry of Colonial Affairs until 1941, when World War II arrived at FranceвЂ™s borders. At the age of seventeen, Duras left for France and eventually earned a licence in law and political science at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. Despite the familyвЂ™s poverty, Duras was able to study Vietnamese and French in the prestigious Lycee de Saigon. In particular, her most famous novel, The Lover, is based heavily on her own experiences as a young woman coming of age in French Indochina.ДЄ French Resistor. The familyвЂ™s troubles in Indochina form the backdrop for many of DurasвЂ™s novels. Unfortunately, the colonial officials who sold her the plantation were dishonest, the land was virtually worthless because of recurring flooding from the sea, and DurasвЂ™s mother found herself broke and trying to raise her family far from home. Following the death of her father when Duras was four years old, her mother spent the familyвЂ™s savings on a rice plantation, hoping the venture would prove viable enough to support her and her three young children. Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on April 4, 1914, near Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, then known as French indochina, where her parents had moved to teach school. Works in Biographical and Historical ContextДЄ Childhood in Indochina. Featured in numerous interviews on television and in popular magazines in France, Duras became something of a national literary phenomenon. The publication of The Lover sparked interest in all her work, which was quickly republished to meet the overwhelming demand. Although Duras had been writing fiction and directing films for over forty years, she was always considered a rather inaccessible author by the general public. One of the most important literary figures in France, Marguerite Duras won international acclaim after she was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt for her autobiographical novel The Lover. Lipnitzki / Roger Viollet / Getty Images.

Marguerite duras the war summary