Colette Audry (1906–1990)

Colette Audry was born in Orange, in the Provence region of France. Her family moved around during her childhood for her father's assignments in the French préfecture administration, and settled in Paris in 1920. She was the elder sister of Jacqueline Audry, who became a film director, and for whom Colette would write several acclaimed screenplays. After completing secondary studies, she attended the École normale supérieure de Sèvres and passed the agrégation de lettres (teaching certificate) in 1928. She began her career as a teacher in Caen, then moved to Rouen, where she met Simone de Beauvoir, beginning a lifelong friendship. During this period, she also began a lifelong involvement in left-wing politics. In 1936, she was appointed to the Lycée Molière in Paris and also traveled to Spain at the start of the Civil War; afterwards, she helped found the socialist newspaper L'Espagne to promote the Loyalist cause. During World War II, especially after her transfer to Grenoble, she took took part in the French Resistance.

After the war, back in Paris, she served as a project manager at the Ministry of Information. She then returned to teaching, but also pursued a literary career.
She published a memoir, Aux yeux du souvenir (In the Eyes of Memory), in 1947. In addition to writing novels, such as the autobiographical Derrière la baignoire (Behind the Bathtub, 1962), for which she received the Prix Médicis, she was a well-known essayist, short story writer, and playwright. She was a noted literary critic, especially on the works of Jean-Paul Sartre. She collaborated with Sartre on the literary magazine Les Temps Modernes, and directed the publication of works by French and foreign women writers at the Editions Denoël publishing house. She was a member of the Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, Unified Socialist Party), and ran for election to the National Assembly several times without success. In 2013, the main courtyard of the headquarters of the Socialist Party in the rue de Solférino in Paris was named in her honor.