Colette Yver (28 July 1874 – 17 March 1953) was a French Roman Catholic writer from
Normandy
Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy.
Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...
, the winner of the 1907
Prix Femina
The Prix Femina is a French List of literary awards, literary prize awarded each year by an exclusively female jury. The prize, which was established in 1904, is awarded to French-language works written in prose or Verse (poetry), verse by male ...
for her work ''Princesses de science''.
Biography
The daughter of a civil servant transferred to Rouen shortly after her birth, Colette Yver was a prolific writer who began publishing, from the age of eighteen, novels for the "Bibliothèque morale de la jeunesse" at in Rouen. She would publish about a book (novels, essays, or
hagiographies
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...
) a year for the next fifty years of her life. Her works are representative of the anti-feminist fiction which abounded under the Third Republic. Intended for a female audience, these types of novels depicted emancipated women confronted with multiple misfortunes that they would not have suffered had they chosen life at home.
In 1907, she won the
prix Femina
The Prix Femina is a French List of literary awards, literary prize awarded each year by an exclusively female jury. The prize, which was established in 1904, is awarded to French-language works written in prose or Verse (poetry), verse by male ...
cimetière monumental de Rouen
The Rouen Monumental Cemetery () is the most important cemetery of the Norman city of Rouen, opened in 1828 and situated to the North-East of the town-centre. The entrance gate, the chapel and the monumental cross are the work of Charles Felix Mai ...
next to her brother, painter
Édouard de Bergevin
Édouard de Bergevin (18 July 1861 – 6 December 1925) was a French painter of the Rouen school. He was novelist Colette Yver's brother.
He studied at the academy of painting of Rouen, with Frechon, Angrand and Joseph Delattre for fellow s ...