Bored and indifferent towards her boyfriend, Bertrand, Dominique feels a shift in her affections when she meets his married uncle, Luc. She won the Prix de Monaco in 1984 in recognition of all of her work.Īs short and sharp as her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan's second (published a year later) is the story of a young woman's affair with an older man, and her subsequent, inevitable, heartbreak. She had one son, Denis, from her second marriage. First married in 1958 to Guy Schoeller, a publisher, they divorced in 1960, and she was then married to Robert James Westhoff, an American ceramicist and sculptor, from 1962 to 63. Sagan was twice married and divorced, and subsequently maintained several long-term lesbian relationships. Her habit of driving fast was moderated after a serious car accident in 1957 involving her Aston Martin while she was living in Milly, France. She was known for her love of drinking, gambling, and fast driving. She chose 'Sagan' as her pen name because she liked the sound of it and also liked the reference to the Prince and Princesse de Sagan, 19th century Parisians, who are said to be the basis of some of Marcel Proust's characters. Later that year, She won the Prix des Critiques for Bonjour Tristesse. She submitted it to Editions Juillard in January 1954 and it was published that March. She went to her family's home in the south of France and wrote her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, at age 18. She was an independent thinker and avid reader as a young girl, and upon failing her examinations for continuing at the Sorbonne, she became a writer. Born Françoise Quoirez, Sagan grew up in a French Catholic, bourgeois family.

A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan