Éliane Stas de Richelle, also known as Marie Denis (December 4, 1920 – July 30, 2006) was a Belgian writer and feminist.

Biography

Having married Albert Meeùs, a Belgian magistrate in 1942, she became involved with him in the Catholic movement of the

Teams of Our Lady A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to info ...

, for which they became responsible in Belgium but resigned in the early 1960s. After giving birth and raising six children, Marie Denis published her first novel in 1961, ''Des jours trop longs''. Wanting to make the ambivalent feminine experience of a pregnancy, as opposed to the natalist injunctions to the "obvious happiness" of motherhood, this book has had a certain success by the debates it has aroused in women's magazines, family magazines, etc. She won the Victor-Rossel Prize in 1967 for her second novel, ''L'Odeur du père'', an excerpt of which was published in ''Les Temps Modernes'' by

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

, with whom she maintained an ongoing correspondence. A portrait without concession but without resentment of a father lost in appearances. In the story ''Célébration des grands-mères'', published in 1969, she retraces her childhood tossed around between her paternal (petty aristocracy in

Ghent Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...

) and maternal (upper

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...

of Liège) families who took charge of her alternately with her younger brother and sister. Her pen name as a writer is also inspired by the name of one of her grandmothers. Called on to sit in 1966 on the National Council of Women of Belgium (an organization that federated Belgian feminist organizations since 1905), she naturally took an interest in the problems experienced by women (this was notably the year of the Women's Strike of FN

Herstal Herstal (; ), formerly known as Heristal, or Héristal (), is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city of Wallonia located in the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. It lies along the Meuse river. Herst ...

), including more specifically widows. She was on the editorial board of the quarterly literary collection ''Audace''. Becoming a journalist, she shared with Françoise Collin the responsibility of the cultural pages of the weekly ''La Relève'' (1965-1970), where they created in 1970 a "Women" section. They notably evoke the recent books of

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and feminist, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she ...

and

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan (; February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book '' The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the s ...

, etc., thus confronting an essentially male editorial board. From this period dates their friendship and their common commitment to feminism. Marie Denis also produces articles for ''La Revue Nouvelle'', ''Le Ligueur'' (newspaper of the Ligue des Familles in Belgium), etc. She played an active role in what has been called the

second wave of feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred th ...

in Belgium. In 1972, she created ''Le Petit Livre Rouge des Femmes'' with Jeanne Vercheval and Suzanne Van Rokeghem. She was one of the founders of the Maison des Femmes in Brussels and one of the initiators of the Women's Days (organized in Brussels, on November 11, 1972 and the following years). Co-founder of the magazine Voyelles, she was part of the editorial board of ''Cahiers du Grif''. Until the 2000s, she was also a member of the redaction committee of ''La Revue nouvelle''. After ten years of intense activism, Marie Denis published ''Dis Marie, c'était comment rue du Méridien 79?'' in 1980 and ''Le Retour des choses'' in 1985, then ''Le Féminisme est dans la rue'' with Suzanne Van Rokeghem in 1992. She has also given numerous conferences in Belgium, Quebec, etc. She has worked on

Suzanne Lilar Baroness Suzanne Lilar (née ''Suzanne Verbist''; 21 May 1901 – 11 December 1992) was a Flemish Belgian essayist, novelist, and playwright writing in French. She was the wife of the Belgian Minister of Justice Albert Lilar and mother of th ...

and

Luce Irigaray Luce Irigaray (; born 3 May 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most ...

. In 1995, several of her articles from ''La Revue Nouvelle'' were included in a collection, ''La Rose des Vents'', the title of the section where they had appeared. The choice is made by her of her articles more literary than militant, devoted to life as it comes. In 1998, she received the Félix Denayer prize for her body of work and the Scriptores Christiani prize for ''Célébration des grands-mères'', published in 1969 and reissued in 1997. Her granddaughters Catherine and Éléonore Meeùs wrote with Stéphanie Van Vyve a play, ''Des jours trop longs'', inspired by the eponymous novel and created, in a staging by Cécile Van Snick, by Éléonore Meeùs and Stéphanie Van Vyve at the Festival de Spa on August 10, 2012.

Publications

* ''Connaître la vie'': Choice of French texts with commentary for the use of students in the lower grades of secondary education nder the name of Éliane Meeùs anthology, University Publishing, Brussels, 1960, 222 p. Illustrations by Xavier de Callataÿ. * ''Des jours trop longs'', novel, Éditions universitaires, Paris, 1961, 167 p. * ''L'Odeur du père'', novel, Victor-Rossel Prize 1967; first ed.

Robert Morel Robert Morel (1653 – 19 August 1731) was a French Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine monk. Morel was born in 1653 in La Chaise-Dieu, La Chaise Dieu, Auvergne. He took holy orders at the abbey of Saint Faron de Meaux in 1671; was sent to the ...

, Forcalquier, 1972, 130 p .; new edition Uccle, Belgium, Éditions Névrosée, 2019, 110 p. () * ''Célébration des grands-mères'',

, Forcalquier, 1969; reed. Mols, Grâce-Hollogne, 1997 (revised edition), 107 p., (); reed. (in large print) Blue ink, Villegly, 1998, 140 p., (). * ''Flandres'', coll. “La Cuisine rustique”,

, Forcalquier, 1970, 183 p. * ''Le Petit Livre Rouge des Femmes'' (with other authors), Éditions Vie Ouvrière, Brussels, 1972, 52 p. Online:
Le Petit Livre rouge des Femmes
'. * ''Dis Marie, c’était comment rue du Méridien 79?'', Éditions Voyelles - L’une et l’autre (asbl), Brussels, 1980, 205 p. * ''Retour des choses'' (''Reine au jardin'' followed by ''L'Odeur du père''), Éditions Tierce, Paris, 1985, 101 p., (). * ''Le féminisme est dans la rue: Belgique 1970-1975'' (with Suzanne Van Rokeghem), POL-HIS, De Boeck, Brussels, 1992, 236 p., () * ''La Rose des vents'', Quorum, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, 1995, 191 p., (). Marie Denis's archives are deposited at the nl: Artprice.com- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Vrouwengeschiedenis (Archives and Research Center for the History of Women
AVG-Carhif
.

External links

Le Soir, February 17, 1989.
Le féminisme est dans la rue: Belgique 1970-1975
''-'' Full book in PDF for free

Sources

* Sophie Kotányi, ''Dis-moi Marie'', production Marisa Films and C.B.A., Brussels, 1985, 29 minutes, color. * Laure de Hesselle, “Marie Denis: on the adventure of Belgian feminism, its achievements and the battles that still need to be waged”, ''Le Soir'', March 13, 1999. * Joëlle Kwaschin, Obituary in ''La Revue nouvelle'', 2006. * Suzanne Van Rokeghem, Jeanne Vercheval-Vervoort & Jacqueline Aubenas, ''Des femmes dans l’histoire en Belgique'', depuis 1830, Éditions Luc Pire, Brussels, 2006, (). * Claudine Marissal and Éliane Gubin, ''Jeanne Vercheval: Un engagement social et féministe'', Institut pour l'égalité des hommes et des femmes, Brussels, 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denis, Marie 1920 births 2006 deaths Belgian women writers Belgian feminists