Margaret Atack

Margaret Atack (died 13 December 2023) was a British scholar of French literature, with a focus on the Second World War and on French post-war feminisms.

Early life Born in Leicester, England, Atack moved frequently with her family before settling in Liverpool in the late 1960s. She attended St Mary's School, Shaftesbury, a Catholic boarding school, before earning a first-class degree in French at University College London (UCL) in 1971. Her grandfather fought in France during World War I.

Career Atack completed her PhD and began teaching at UCL, later holding posts at Southampton and Cardiff universities. She joined the University of Leeds in 1979, where she served in various leadership roles, including professor, head of French, dean of arts, and pro-vice-chancellor for research. She also led humanities and social studies at Sunderland Polytechnic from 1989 to 1993, before returning to Leeds.

She was an authority on French literature about the Resistance and the Occupation and was an early member of Women in French UK. Her 2020 monograph, Jean-François Vilar: Theatres of Crime, examined the French political crime writer .

Later life

Atack partially retired in 2016. She fully retired in 2022 due to ill health.

Margaret met her partner, the translator and historian David Macey (d. 2011), when she was a student. They adopted three children. Margaret was survived by her children, six grandchildren and her brother.

In 2024, the "Occupation and Resistance, Crime Fiction and Memory. A day symposium in honour of Margaret Atack" was held at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London in her memory, supported by the University of London’s Cassal Fund and the Society for French Studies.

Selected bibliography Literature and the French Resistance: Cultural Politics and Narrative Forms 1940–1950. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989.

May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Representation, Rethinking Society (1991)

Jean-François Vilar: Theatres of Crime. Cambridge: Legenda, 2020.