2023-06-20 10:14:34
The woman of letters and culture columnist of the World for 35 years had become a popular figure by playing the unworthy grannies at the Big Heads.
She had a loose verb and an incisive pen. Claude Sarraute, journalist at Monde for more than 35 years, then columnist with a piquant reply to Les Grosses Têtes, died on June 20 at the age of 95. This woman of culture, daughter of the novelist Nathalie Sarraute, will have graced the entertainment section of the evening newspaper with lively mood notes that have long delighted her readers.
His thundering style, which worked wonders in writing, will find new life on the radio from the 1990s. By agreeing to play the “half-gunned, half-ingenuous grannies“, to Big heads by Philippe Bouvard on RTL, then with Laurent Ruquier on Europe 1 (We’re going to get embarrassed), France 2 (We tried everything) or France Inter (Nothing to wax), Claude Sarraute would become a popular figure in the audiovisual industry. In all these volleys, she knew how to slash as well as dodge. A formidable swordsman, she always had fun, to her advantage, with the fake (or real) machismo of her male colleagues and particularly the iconoclastic and gruff sailor, Olivier de Kersauzon.
Some false ingenuities of Claude Sarraute…
Light, laughing, unconventional, capable of wit and also of scratches, Claude Sarraute had married the American journalist Stanley Karnow in 1948, then Christophe Tzara, son of Tristan, in 1956, and, finally, the philosopher, essayist and journalist Jean-François Revel in 1967. “My retarded and irresponsible child side had to distract him. I was his most loyal groupie. He knew everything, I knew nothing“, she said of her last husband, exaggerating his lack of culture and his naivety.
Claude Sarraute was born on July 24, 1927 in Paris, the eldest daughter of one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century, Nathalie Sarraute (1900-1999), and lawyer Raymond Sarraute. The intellectual and serious environment in which she grew up did not prevent her from having a taste for laughter. “I made my mother laugh until I was 99. I was indelibly cheerful. With a woman like that, it was my only chance to get out of it, right? (…). To compare us is to compare In Search of Lost Time et Pip the Dog. For her, what mattered was that I worked in a newspaper like Le Monde”, she confided one day to Release.
Her wrinkles… a goodwill
With a degree in English, she did a bit of theater before embarking on journalism, collaborating with the Sunday Express. In 1952, she began to write at Monde. She remained there for 35 years, columnist in the section Spectacles, Then Television, and finally by signing an insolent note on the last page, entitled On the spot (chronicles collected in the collection So say !).
Claude Sarraute joined, in the early 1990s, The band at Ruquier. Unlike many women her age, she was not looking to look younger. “I have a lot of wrinkles but it’s not a problem“To go on TV, she assured, saying fight”against youthism and anti-old racism“. She added mischievously that “his age is his business».
Claude Sarraute has long written a column at Psychologies magazine and wrote several novels, which she called “clowneriesas if to apologize for not being on his mother’s level. Among his books are Hello, Lolotte, it’s Coco, Ah! love always Love, Sarraute, the girl of the year, Dad here?, Say, do you love me?, Say see, Maminette…or Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Ignoring formal formalities, she wrote in spoken style, advocating a futility that aimed to say the essential.
Claude Sarraute, who saw himself living as long as his much-admired mother, said in 2014: “On a physical level, everything is fine… Health problems, we had time to get used to them! And thank you also the progress of medicine! At my age, we are patched up to last as long as possible“. Mother of four children (including an adopted daughter), she played, at almost 80 years old, in Catherine Breillat’s film, An old mistress(2007). She is notably the mother of sports journalist Martin Tzara and Nicolas Revel, head of the AP-HP.
1687257776
#Claude #Sarraute #nonconformist #journalist #novelist #died