Albertine Sarrazin

Albertine Sarrazin (17 September 1937 – 10 July 1967) was a French author. She was best known for her semi-autobiographical novel L'Astragale.

Life and career Albertine was born on 17 September 1937 in Algiers, French North Africa. Her teenaged Spanish mother abandoned her and left her with the Welfare Office, where officials named her Albertine Damien in honour of the saint of the day she was found on. At the age of 2 she was adopted by a French army physician and his wife who renamed her Anne-Marie. Following the family's move to Aix-en-Provence in 1947, she was raped by a male relative. Constant quarrels with her adoptive family led to an intense distaste for authority that stayed with her the rest of her life.

Although she was intelligent and did well in her studies, Albertine's family set to annul her adoption and in 1952 placed her in a reformatory school in Marseille, the Refuge of the Good Shepherd. She passed an examination to graduate from secondary school at the age of 16 before escaping the school and travelling to Paris where she reunited with Emilienne, a love interest from her school. Albertine worked as a prostitute and the pair were arrested in 1953 after a bungled armed robbery of a dress store. Sarrazin received a seven year sentence and was imprisoned at the Fresnes Prison. During her time in prison and at the reformatory at Doullens in Picardy, she started writing prose and poetry.