Colette Yver

Colette Yver (28 July 1874 – 17 March 1953) was a French Roman Catholic writer from Normandy, the winner of the 1907 Prix Femina for her work Princesses de science.

Biography The daughter of a civil servant transferred to Rouen shortly after her birth, Colette Yver was a prolific writer who began publishing, from the age of eighteen, novels for the "Bibliothèque morale de la jeunesse" at in Rouen. She would publish about a book (novels, essays, or hagiographies) a year for the next fifty years of her life. Her works are representative of the anti-feminist fiction which abounded under the Third Republic. Intended for a female audience, these types of novels depicted emancipated women confronted with multiple misfortunes that they would not have suffered had they chosen life at home.

In 1907, she won the prix Femina (then called prix Vie Heureuse, présided by Jeanne Lapauze) for Princesses de science, A book referring to the difficulties encountered by women in reconciling family and scientific careers. In 1913 she entered the jury of this award, of which she was long the dean, until 1951. In 1917, she was admitted to the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen.

Her sister Marguerite (1869-1961), wife of Dr. Guillaume, a young widow with two children in 1896, a professor of French until an advanced age in free education, gave tales for children under the pseudonym "Hélène Avril".

She is buried at cimetière monumental de Rouen next to her brother, painter Édouard de Bergevin.

She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (decree 11 August 1931).

Essays, novels

1907: Princesses de science, Calmann-Lévy, (crowned by the Prix Vie Heureuse, previous name of the Prix Femina) 1911: Le Métier de Roi, Calmann-Lévy 1916: Comment s'en vont les Reines, Calmann-Lévy, 1919: Les cousins riches 1920: Dans le jardin du féminisme 1909: Les Dames du Palais 1926: Aujourd'hui... 1928: La Bergerie 1908: Les Cervelines, Calmann-lévy 1929: Femmes d'aujourd'hui 1931: Vincent ou La Solitude 1932: Le Vote des femmes 1912: Un coin du voile 1913: Les sables mouvants in Revue des Deux mondes 1928: Le mystère des béatitudes 1917: Mirabelle de Pampelune 1928: Le festin des autres 1928: L'homme et le dieu 1928: Vous serez comme des dieux 1928: Haudequin de Lyon