Florence Delay

Florence Delay (; 19 March 1941 – 1 July 2025) was a French writer and actress. She was a member of the Académie française from 2000. Delay notably wrote novels, essays and plays (in collaboration with Jacques Roubaud) and translated texts from Spanish.

Delay was also known for portraying Joan of Arc in the 1962 Robert Bresson film The Trial of Joan of Arc.

Early life and education Florence Delay wa born on 19 March 1941 the second daughter of Marie-Madeleine Carrez and Jean Delay, psychiatrist and writer. She was the sister of Claude Delay, writer and psychoanalyst.

She attended the Lycée Jean de La Fontaine and then studied Spanish at Faculté des lettres de Paris and at the Sorbonne. After obtaining her Spanish degree, she taught general and comparative literature at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.

After studying at the École du Vieux-Colombier, she was then a trainee stage manager at the Festival d'Avignon, assistant to Raymond Rouleau at the Théâtre du Gymnase, and to Georges Wilson at the Théâtre national populaire (TNP). She translated La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas, staged by Antoine Vitez in 1989; and then, in another version, by Christian Schiaretti, at the TNP in 2011, as well as works from the Spanish Golden Age (Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega). Starting with Petites Formes en prose après Edison (1987), she alternated between novels, essays and other writings.

Personal life and death Delay was married to the film producer Maurice Bernart. She died in Paris on 1 July 2025, at the age of 84.