Jeanne Galzy (1883–1977)

Jeanne Galzy was the pen name of Louise Jeanne Baraduc, born in Montpellier, in the Languedoc region of France. She graduated with a baccalauréat from the Lycée de Montpellier and attended classes at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1915 she became a teacher in a boys' school, thanks to the absence of men at World War I, but contracted tuberculosis and had to leave the job to recover. She began writing for a living under the pseudonym Jeanne Galzy and published articles in various periodicals and magazines such as La Nouvelle Revue Francaise. Her first novel Les Allongés won the Prix Femina in 1923 and she later became a longtime member of the jury for the award. Other books such as La Surprise de vivre (1969) portrayed upper-class Protestant life in Montpellier similar to that of her own family. Galzy also wrote biographies of such historical figures, as Saint Teresa of Avila (1927), Catherine de Medici (1936), Margeurite de Valois (1939), and George Sand (1950). Her work is largely forgotten today.