MALLET-JORIS, FRANOISE

born July 6, 1930, Antwerp Belgian author, one of the leading contemporary exponents of the traditional French novel of psychological love analysis. Her father was a statesman and her mother, Suzanne Lilar, an author and a critic. At 19 Franoise won unanimous critical approval with her novel Le Rempart des bguines (1951; The Illusionist, 1952; Into the Labyrinth, 1953), the story of an affair between a girl and her father's mistress, described with clinical detachment in a sober, classical prose. After another novel, La Chambre rouge (1953; The Red Room, 1956), and a book of short stories in the same tone, Cordlia (1956; Cordelia and Other Short Stories, 1965), her style changed with Les Mensonges (Prix de la slection des Libraires de France, 1956; House of Lies, 1957), which told of the struggle between a dying businessman and his illegitimate daughter, who remains true to her mother. In L'Empire cleste (1958; Caf Cleste, 1959) and Les Signes et les prodiges (1966; Signs and Wonders, 1966), she pursued the search for a truth hidden beneath a proliferation of human activities. She turned to the historical novel with Les Personnages (1960; The Favourite, 1962), about the intrigues wrought by Cardinal de Richelieu around the love life of King Louis XIII, and with Marie Mancini le premier amour de Louis XIV (1964; The Uncompromising Heart: A Life of Marie Mancini, Louis XIV's First Love 1966). Bluntly candid about herself, Mallet-Joris has told of her personal life, her inner conflicts and her religious questsshe became a Roman Catholic convertin her autobiographical writings, Lettre moi-mme (1963; A Letter to Myself, 1964) and La Maison de papier (1970) The Paper House, 1971). Among her later novels are Le Jeu de souterrain (1973; The Underground Game, 1974), Allegra (1976), and Dickie-Roi (1979) and Un Chagrin d'amour et d'ailleurs (1981; A Sorrow of Love and More Besides). She also wrote a biography of Jeanne Guyon (1978), the 17th-century French mystic. Her writings reveal an abundance of detail and colour that is reminiscent of Balzac.