Yvette Z'Graggen

Yvette Z'Graggen (31 March 1920 - 16 April 2012) was a Swiss writer and translator.

Early life and education Yvette Z'Graggen was born in Geneva on 31 March 1920 to Alice (née Hekschohann) and Heinrich Z'Graggen. Her father was Swiss German and a dentist and her mother came from Vienna, with Hungarian ancestry. Her paternal grandfather came from the canton of Uri and had moved to Graubünden. Her parents spoke High German when she was young, her mother in memory of Vienna, her father because he preferred it to the Glarus dialect. After they decided to live in Geneva, French was spoken in the family. The family were part of the Protestant Geneva bourgeoisie.

During the Second World War, Z'Graggen worked for the International Red Cross from 1941 to 1946.

Career In 1939 she wrote her first book, L'Appel du rêve, which was published five years later in 1944 under the pseudonym Danièle Marnan. She wrote novels, autobiographical accounts, short stories and numerous radio plays.

She translated works from Italian and German. Some of her books have been translated into German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian.

From 1949 to 1952, Z'Graggen she worked as a secretary at the Rencontres Internationales de Genève and at the European Cultural Society in Venice.

From 1952 to 1982, she produced cultural and literary programmes for Radio Suisse Romande. From 1982 to 1989, Z'Graggen worked at the Comédie de Genève theatre when it was under the direction of Benno Besson.

Her 1982 book, Les années silencieuses (The Years of Silence) dealt with the Swiss refugee policy of the war years and the shame of those who had not recognised their shortcomings. In Matthias Berg (1995) and Ciel d'Allemagne (Germany's Sky (1996) she considered the ambivalent feelings her generation harboured towards Germany. In Mémoire d'elles (1999) she used two letters discovered in her late mother's belongings to explore the life of her grandmother.

Personal life In 1953, she married Robert Brunel, with whom she had a daughter in 1963. The marriage ended in divorce in 1978. 1993: prix des auditeurs de la Radio suisse romande for La Punta, Éditions de L'Aire, 1992. 1996: Schiller Prize. 1998: prix Rambert, special centenary prize. 2004: prix Lipp Suisse for Un étang sous la glace, Éditions de L'Aire 2003. 2012: prix Édouard-Rod posthumously for Juste avant la pluie, Éditions de L'Aire 2011.

Archives