She was a member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature from 1952 to 1992.
Life
Lilar's mother was a
middle schoolteacher, her father a
railwaystation master. After having lived her youth in Ghent, and following a brief first marriage, she moved to
Antwerp, where she became the first woman lawyer, and where in 1929 she married the lawyer
Albert Lilar who would later become a
Minister of Justice and
Minister of State (Liberal Party). She was the mother of the
writerFrançoise Mallet-Joris (born 1930) and the 18th-century
art historian Marie Fredericq-Lilar (born 1934). After the death of her husband in 1976, she left Antwerp and relocated to
Brussels in 1977.
Education
In 1919 Lilar attended the
State University of Ghent, where she studied
philosophy and was the first woman to receive a
law degree in 1925. During her studies she attended a seminar on
Hadewych. Her interest in the 13th century
poet and
mystic would play an important role in her later
essays,
plays and
novels. Lilar's historico-cultural insight, her analysis of
consciousness and
emotion, her search for
beauty and
love are at the same time current and timeless.
Literary career
Applying a strong intellect to her work through precise language, she was a thoroughly modern writer and
feminist who nonetheless remained highly versed in many areas of traditional
western thought (
Encyclopædia Britannica). In 1956 Lilar succeeds Gustave Van Zype as member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature. Her oeuvre has been translated in numerous languages.
Early work
Lilar began her literary career as a
journalist, reporting on
Republican Spain for the newspaper L'Indépendance belge in 1931. She later became a
playwright with Le Burlador (1946), an original reinterpretation of the
myth of
Don Juan from the
female perspective that revealed a profound capacity for
psychological analysis. She wrote two more
plays, Tous les chemins mènent au ciel (1947), a
theological drama set in a 14th-century
convent, and Le Roi lépreux (1951), a neo-Pirandellian play about the
Crusades.
Critical essays
Her earliest
essays are on the subject of the
theatre. Soixante ans de théâtre belge (1952), originally published in
New York City in 1950 as The Belgian Theater since 1890, emphasizes the importance of a
Flemish tradition. She followed this with Journal de l'analogiste (1954), in which the origin of the experience of beauty and poetry was guided by a path of
analogies. A short essay Théâtre et mythomanie was published in 1958.
Transcendence and
metamorphosis are central to her seminal work Le Couple (1963), translated in 1965 by
Jonathan Griffin as Aspects of Love in Western Society. In writings on
Rubens, the
Androgyne or
homosexuality in
Ancient Greece, Lilar meditates on the role of the woman in
conjugallove throughout the ages. Translated into
Dutch in 1976, it includes an
afterword by
Marnix Gijsen. In the same vein she later wrote critical essays on
Jean-Paul Sartre (À propos de Sartre et de l'amour, 1967) and
Simone de Beauvoir (Le Malentendu du Deuxième Sexe, 1969).
Autobiographical works, novels
Lilar wrote two
autobiographical books, Une Enfance gantoise (1976) and À la recherche d'une enfance (1979), and two
novels, both of which date from 1960, Le Divertissement portugais and La Confession anonyme, a
neoplatonic idealization of love filtered through personal experience. The Belgian director
André Delvaux recreated this novel on film as Benvenuta in 1983, transposed as an intense examination of a tortured but exalted relationship between a young Belgian woman and her Italian lover. Les Moments merveilleux and Journal en partie double, I & II were published as part of Cahiers Suzanne Lilar (1986).
La confession anonyme (1960), Paris, Éditions Julliard; Reedited 1980, Brussels, Éditions Jacques Antoine, with foreword by the author; 1983, Paris,
Gallimard,
ISBN2-07-025106-3. The Belgian
film directorAndré Delvaux adapted this novel in his film
Benvenuta in 1983.
Le Couple in La Nef, n.s. no. 5, La Française Aujourd'hui, La femme et l'Amour, pp. 33–45.
Le Couple (1963), Paris, Grasset; Reedited 1970, Bernard Grasset Coll. Diamant, 1972, Livre de Poche; 1982, Brussels, Les Éperonniers,
ISBN2-87132-193-0; Translated as Aspects of Love in Western Society in 1965, by and with a foreword by Jonathan Griffin, New York,
McGraw-Hill, LC 65-19851.
A propos de Sartre et de l'amour (1967), Paris, Éditions Bernard Grasset; Reedited 1984, Gallimard,
ISBN2-07-035499-7.
Le Malentendu du Deuxième Sexe (1969), with collaboration of Prof. Gilbert-Dreyfus. Paris,
University Presses of France (Presses Universitaires de France).
A la recherche d'une enfance (1979). Foreword by
Jean Tordeur. Brussels, Éditions Jacques Antoine, with original photos by the author's father.
Faire un film avec André Delvaux (1982), pp. 209–214. In André Delvaux ou les visages de l'imaginaire, Ed. A. Nysenhole, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles.
Journal en partie double (1986) in Cahiers Suzanne Lilar, Paris, Gallimard,
ISBN2-07-070632-X.
Les Moments merveilleux (1986) in Cahiers Suzanne Lilar, Paris, Gallimard,
ISBN2-07-070632-X.
Literary awards
Le Burlador, 1946. Prix Picard; 1947. Prix Vaxelaire;
Autour de Suzanne Lilar. Texts of Georges Sion,
Françoise Mallet-Joris,
Julien Gracq, R.P. Carré,
Roland Mortier, Armand Lanoux, Jacques de Decker,
Jean Tordeur, Suzanne Lilar. Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Langue et de Littérature françaises. Brussels, 1978, t. LVI, nr. 2, pp. 165–204.
Alphabet des Lettres belges de langue française. Brussels, Association pour la promotion des Lettres belges de langue française, 1982.
René Micha, 1982. <<Benvenuta>> d'André Delvaux: Une adaptation exemplaire de la <<Confession anonyme>> de Suzanne Lilar, pp. 215–219. In André Delvaux ou les visages de l'imaginaire, Ed. A. Nysenhole, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles.
Cahiers Suzanne Lilar. Paris, Gallimard, 1986 (with a bibliography by Martine Gilmont).
Marc Quaghebeur, 1990, Lettres belges: entre absence et magie. Brussels, Labor, Archives du Futur.
Paul Renard, 1991. Suzanne Lilar: Bio-Bibliographie, vol. 17, pp. 1–6 in Nord – Revue de Critique et de Création Littéraires du Nord/ Pas-de-Calais. Suzanne Lilar- Françoise Mallet-Joris,
ISSN0755-7884.
Béatrice Gaben-Shults, 1991. Le Théåtre de Suzanne Lilar: tentation et refus de mysticisme, vol. 17, pp. 7–13, in Nord – Revue de Critique et de Création Littéraires du Nord/ Pas-de-Calais. Suzanne Lilar – Françoise Mallet-Joris,
ISSN0755-7884.
Colette Nys-Mazure, 1991. La part du feu , vol. 17, pp. 15–22, in Nord – Revue de Critique et de Création Littéraires du Nord/ Pas-de-Calais. Suzanne Lilar – Françoise Mallet-Joris,
ISSN0755-7884.
Colette Nys-Mazure, 1991. Dossiers Suzanne Lilar, dans Dossiers Littérature Française de Belgique (Service du Livre Luxembourgeois) fasc. 3(32): 1–27.
ISSN0772-0742
Michèle Hecquet, 1991. L'Éducation paternelle: Une enfance gantoise, vol. 17, pp. 23–28, in Nord – Revue de Critique et de Création Littéraires du Nord/ Pas-de-Calais. Suzanne Lilar – Françoise Mallet-Joris,
ISSN0755-7884.
Katharina M. Wilson, 1991, Suzanne Lilar in:An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers, Volume two: L-Z, p. 730 (entry by Donald Friedman), Taylor & Francis,
ISBN0-8240-8547-7,
ISBN978-0-8240-8547-6
Frans Amelinckx, 1995, L'apport de John Donne à l'œuvre de S. Lilar, pp. 259–270 in La Belgique telle qu'elle s'écrit.
Françoise Mallet-Joris, Portrait of author; Colette Nys-Masure, foreword of Suzanne Lilar – Théåtre, 1999, Collection Poésie Théåtre Roman, Académie Royale de Langue de de Littérature Françaises,
ISBN2-8032-0033-3
Suzanne Fredericq, 2001, 'Elegance: A Brief, Perfectly Balanced Instant of Complete Possession of Forms", pp. 14–19 In Elegance, Beauty and Truth", Ed. Lewis Pyenson, New Series Vol. 2, Center for Louisiana Studies, Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette,
ISBN1-889911-09-7
Susan Bainbrigge, 2004, Writing about the In-Between in Suzanne Lilar's Une Enfance gantoise, Forum for Modern Language Studies 40(3):301–313.
Hélène Rouch, 2001–2002, Trois conceptions du sexe:
Simone de Beauvoir entre Adrienne Sahuqué et Suzanne Lilar, Simone de Beauvoir Studies, n° 18, pp. 49–60.
Interview
Une enfance gantoise – Une interview de Madame Suzanne Lilar In Le Rail, 1977(2): 23–27