'Laborers of the word; passionate in presentation'

 

“I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.” – Marguerite Duras

 

Duras, a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker, was born in French Indochina (Vietnam) on April 4, 1914 and grew up there in poverty before running away from home as a teenager to live and write in France. 

 

While she was, indeed, a "passionate" journalist, she also was the author of many novels, plays, films and works of short fiction.  Her best-known tales recalled her affair with a rich landowner’s son while still living in Vietnam, led by the best-selling, fictionalized autobiographical work L'Amant, translated into English as The Lover.  That book won her the prestigious Goncourt Prize.   Variations on her teenage affair also appear in The Sea Wall, Eden Cinema and The North China Lover.

 

Awarded France's national theater prize, “The Grand Prix du Théâtre de l’Académie Française,” in recognition of her lifetime body of work, she also was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for her film Hiroshima mon amour.

 

Duras's many essays often spoke to human rights and issues of social justice.  “Journalism without a moral position is impossible,” she said.  “I believe every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable.”