French · 1885–1970
François Mauriac probed the spiritual torments of bourgeois Catholics with a clarity that earned him the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature. The French novelist set his work among the landed gentry of Bordeaux, dissecting families poisoned by money, property, and repressed passion. "Thérèse Desqueyroux" created an unforgettable protagonist who attempts to murder her husband out of sheer spiritual suffocation. Mauriac's Catholicism offered no easy consolation; his characters rarely find grace, though its possibility haunts every page.