women authors - Lesley Blanch

October 15, 2024October 17, 2024

Lesley Blanch & Romain Gary in Sofia, Bulgaria 1946-48

This year, 145 years of diplomatic relations between France and Bulgaria, and the centenary of the French Institute in Sofia, are being celebrated. To mark the occasion, they are holding a series of events and film screenings 21-25 October dedicated to the writer Romain Gary who began his diplomatic career in Sofia, accompanied by his first wife, the journalist and historian, Lesley Blanch. His stay in the Bulgarian capital, where he was a perceptive observer of Soviet totalitarianism, was marked by close surveillance by the intelligence services. His account of this period, recounted in La nuit sera calme, is a source of historical insight into the transformations of this Balkan country.

July 22, 2024October 17, 2024

Georgia de Chamberet en conversation avec Simon Bentolila de Lire Magazine (in French) Podcast

Pour célébrer la parution du livre Une femme, deux hommes Lesley Blanch, Théodore Kommissarzhevsky et Romain Gary (Ed. Herodios) à la Maison de Balzac, Paris, le Mercredi 5 Juin, Simon Bentolila de Lire Magazine a discuté avec Georgia de Chamberet de la vie et des amours de Lesley Blanch (1904-2007).

Femme libre et autonome, artiste complète et grande voyageuse, Lesley Blanch n’en était pas moins totalement dévouée aux deux hommes de sa vie, le dramaturge Théodore Kommissarzhevsky, et par la suite, l’écrivain Romain Gary, dont elle fut le première épouse.

“Il faudrait toujours chercher la femme exceptionnelle qui se cache derrière l’oeuvre d’un grand homme,” Journal de Dimanche

A BookBlast® Production | 32:24

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March 25, 2024March 25, 2024

Le lien entre Les Sabres du Paradis de Lesley Blanch et Dune de Frank Herbert?

dune frank herbert sabres du paradis lesley blanch in french

De plus en plus d’articles sur le lien entre Les Sabres du Paradis et Dune apparaissent en ligne. Les adaptations cinématographiques permettent de faire connaître un livre à un public plus large et de pousser ses ventes. Il ne fait aucun doute que Dune se vend très bien. Mais qu’en est-il des livres basés sur d’autres livres qui étaient célèbres à l’époque où ils ont été écrits et publiés pour la première fois?

Les Sabres du Paradis de Lesley Blanch a été publié en 1960 et Dune de Frank Herbert en 1965. Lesley Blanch était, à l’époque, une célébrité des deux côtés de l’Atlantique. Elle éditait des scénarios pour le grand réalisateur hollywoodien George Cukor pendant qu’elle écrivait ce livre, dont certaines scènes sont de drames de haute voltage. Aujourd’hui, un demi siècle plus tard, Lesley Blanch est une femme de l’ombre, souvent oubliée ou bien même ignorée du grand public.

January 9, 2024February 12, 2024

Communiqué de Presse Lesley Blanch ‘Une femme deux hommes’

communique press une femme deux hommes lesley blanch ed herodios mars 2024_

LESLEY BLANCH Une femme, deux hommes
GEORGIA DE CHAMBERET
Editions Herodios 130 pages | 220×140 mm | Prix : 20€
En librairie le 1er mars 2024
Contact presse Françoise Laigle email francoise [a] carouzel.com

Le récit inédit de la vie d’une femme au talent exceptionnel dévouée aux deux génies qui ont partagé sa vie . . .

October 2, 2023January 4, 2024

News ‘The real meaning of President Macron’s gift to King Charles’, The Times, 23-09-2023

Admirers of the life and work of Lesley Blanch were quick to get in touch about the puzzling omission from Damian Whitworth’s article The real meaning of President Macron’s gift to King Charles, published in The Times on 23 September 2023, especially given the context of the article.

May 10, 2023November 9, 2023

News Lesley Blanch, Pierre Loti, l’évadé, Le Passeur Éditeur

pierre loti infos presse le passeur et site lesley blanch

La biographie originale et personnelle de Pierre Loti par Lesley Blanch, écrivaine-voyageuse et la première épouse de Romain Gary

Julien Viaud, passé à la postérité sous le nom de Pierre Loti, est mort le 10 juin 1923 à 73 ans. On lui fit des funérailles nationales. En 2023, nous fêtons le centième anniversaire de sa disparition. À cette occasion, son extravagante maison de Rochefort avec sa mosquée damascène, fermée depuis 2012, rouvre ses portes.

August 28, 2021April 14, 2024

From the Archive Lesley Blanch & Terence Rattigan

A leading British playwright of the 1940s and 1950s, Terence Rattigan is chiefly remembered today for The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea and Separate Tables. He also wrote screenplays based on novels, among them Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, James Hilton’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips . . . and Lesley Blanch’s The Nine Tiger Man.

But the film of Lesley Blanch’s only novel was never completed. According to a letter held in the George Cukor papers at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90211, dated 14 July, 1972, from 20^th Century Fox to the film’s director, George Cukor, 20th Century Studios “have 1,500,000 US dollars in charges in the film and would accept a reasonable offer for the property.”

The revised final version of Terence Rattigan’s script-screenplay, dated 14 November, 1966, is also in the Margaret Herrick Library – along with Gene Allen’s script-screenplay based on Rattigan’s, dated 5 April, 1967. Gavin Lambert’s script-screenplay is alleged by Hollywood insiders to be the best version but has disappeared and is, as yet, unfound.

Terence Rattigan said of The Nine Tiger Man: “Romantic, outrageous, savage and comic . . . It is the purest ironic comedy, almost, let’s face it, black.”

It was to be filmed partly at Belvoir Castle Grantham (Rutland).

June 27, 2021November 9, 2023

Lesley Blanch & Fearless Women of the World

freya-stark-lelsey-blanch-nancy-mitford-official-website-lesley-blanch

A pioneering writer and thinker, Lesley Blanch was ahead of her time and prescient in the way she attempted to bridge the gap between Western and Eastern culture.

She wrote about bold women who turned their backs on the constraints and conventions of society, broke the rules, and managed to do their own thing. They are inspiring reminders that throughout history, women have fought to assert themselves as individuals, whereas most men have had the luxury of taking their independence and authority for granted. We still live in a society controlled by men, but you don’t have to play masculine to be a strong woman.

November 9, 2020November 3, 2023

Shusha Guppy interviews Lesley Blanch (1991) part 6

Shusha Guppy interviewed Lesley Blanch at her home in Garavan, before and after a delicious home-cooked lunch consumed in the shade of a fig tree in the garden. September 1988.

Shusha Guppy : Do you have a routine for work? When do you work?

Lesley Blanch : I used to write early in the morning – I was rather matinale. When I was writing The Sabres in Hollywood and I was running a house and doing lots of entertaining, I used to write when I came back from a party, then have two or three hours sleep, get up at five and write till eight. Alternatively I would get up at three and work till seven, then get into the car and go up into the hills around Los Angeles to have breakfast in some cowboy café. But it was irregular work – Romain and the house came first.

October 26, 2020November 3, 2023

Shusha Guppy interviews Lesley Blanch (1991) part 4

Shusha Guppy interviewed Lesley Blanch at her home in Garavan, before and after a delicious home-cooked lunch consumed in the shade of a fig tree in the garden. September 1988.

Shusha Guppy : People like you who are passionate about Russia and Russian literature are usually disappointed by the Soviet Union. But in your book you seem to approve of it. In the passage relating to your trip to Siberia you write most poignantly and vividly about the plight of the convicts in the nineteenth century with their chains and fetters dragging through the frozen steppes, yet hardly mention the millions and millions who perished in Stalin’s concentration camps, in worse conditions. How come?

Lesley Blanch : I think the Russian Revolution was an inevitable move in the context of the twentieth century, just as Khomeini’s Islamic revivalism is today. It is something, a phase, to be gone through. I don’t think it will kill Persia, and it hasn’t killed Russia. You might remember what the Tzarina Alexandra said: “Russia can only be ruled by the knout” – the whip. Yes, that very English, rather silly stubborn lady who was killed in Ekaterinburg in 1918, said that. I don’t know what conclusions to draw from that.