Marie-Noëlle Drouet, known as Minou Drouet (born 24 July 1947), of

La Guerche-de-Bretagne La Guerche-de-Bretagne (; ) is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany in northwestern France. The cellist Louis-Marie Pilet (1815–1877) was born in La Guerche-de-Bretagne. Population Inhabitants of La Guerche-de-Bretagne a ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, is a former

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

, and

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

Biography

Drouet gained fame in 1955 when some of her poems and letters circulated privately among French writers and publishers, generating controversy over whether or not Drouet's mother Claude was their true author. Drouet soon overcame much of this skepticism by writing poems before witnesses without her mother present. In one such test, she wrote a poem to gain admission to France's Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers.Kitten on the Keys
'

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

'' Jan. 28, 1957. Drouet also studied

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Drouet toured as an author and musician.

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

said famously of Drouet, "Tous les enfants ont du génie sauf Minou Drouet" (In English: "All children are geniuses, except Minou Drouet" Barthes, Roland (2012/1957). ''

Mythologies Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

'', p.174. Translated from French by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers. Hill and Wang. .). Michel Attenoux named his "Minou Drouet Stomp", featuring

Sidney Bechet Sidney Joseph Bechet ( ; May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important Solo (music), soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Ar ...

, after her. After her grandmother became ill around 1966, Drouet worked as a nurse for two years before returning to public life as a singer-songwriter and children's novelist. She wrote one adult novel; its title in English translation was ''Donatella''. Gottlieb, Robert. "A Lost Child", ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. 6 November 2006, pp. 70-77. Eventually, Drouet returned to her childhood home in La Guerche-de-Bretagne. She now lives with her husband Jean-Paul Le Canu and has left public life except to publish a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

, ''Ma vérité'', in 1993. ''

New Yorker New Yorker may refer to: * A resident of New York: ** A resident of New York City and its suburbs *** List of people from New York City ** A resident of the New York (state), State of New York *** Demographics of New York (state) * ''The New Yor ...

'' critic

Robert Gottlieb Robert Adams Gottlieb (April 29, 1931 – June 14, 2023) was an American writer and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and ''The New Yorker''. Gottlieb joined Simon & Schuster in 1955 as an editorial ass ...

describes ''Ma vérité'' as "reticent and skimpy," saying that it focuses on facts rather than subjective interpretations of Drouet's childhood.

Bibliography

Works in English

*''Arbre, mon ami'', translator Christine Tacq. Thame ngland: 1998. *''Then there was fire'' translator Margaret Crosland, London : Hamish Hamilton, 1957.

Books by Minou Drouet

* ''Poèmes.'', Genève, R. Kister, 1956. * ''Arbre, mon ami'' (1957) * ''Le Pêcheur de lune'' (1959) * ''Du brouillard dans les yeux'' (1966) * ''La Patte bleue'' (1966) * ''Ouf de la forêt'' (1968) * ''La Flamme rousse'' (1968, illustrated by Daniel Billon) * ''Ma vérité'' (1993) * ''Then there was fire'' (1957), translated by Margaret Crosland

Texts about Minou Drouet

* ''L'Affaire Minou Drouet'' (André Parinaud, 1956) *

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...

, « La littérature selon Minou Drouet », article published at '' Les Lettres nouvelles'' and retaken in the book ''

'', 1957.

References

External links

Article
in ''

Paris Match ''Paris Match'' () is a French-language weekly gossip magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. ''Paris Match'' has been considered "one of the world's best outlets for photojournalism". ...

'' (1955)
Excerpt
from autobiography of

Charles Templeton Charles Bradley Templeton (October 7, 1915 – June 7, 2001) was a Canadian media figure and a former Christian evangelist. Known in the 1940s and 1950s as a leading evangelist, he became an agnostic and later embraced atheism after stru ...

. (The section on Drouet begins about halfway through this chapter.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Drouet, Minou French poets Child writers Living people 1947 births