Irène Frain
Irène Frain (née Le Pohon; 22 May 1950, Lorient, Morbihan) is a French novelist, journalist, and historian. She is a founding member of the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society. Biography Irene Frain was born into a very close but destitute family. Her first book was a history of the golden age of maritime Brittany titled Quand les Bretons peuplaient les mers (When the Bretons inhabited the seas) published in 1979. She studied at the lycée Dupuy-de-Lôme de Lorient, where she obtained a degree in Classics in 1972. From 1972 to 1978 she taught classics at different high schools in Lagny-sur-Marne and Champigny-sur-Marne and finally Jacques Decour in Paris. From 1975 to 1981 she taught Latin and Latin literature at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. She dedicated her first novel, The Nabob (1982), to René Madec. The novel's plot was about a small Breton cabin boy who became a mogul in India. This epic tale of 18th century India was a success, and her subsequent novels honed further her talents: an acute sense of intrigue, a sometimes dry and at other times flamboyant style, attempts at empathy with her characters, some humor, and an abundant imagination. Some of her novels are Modern Style (1984), Désirs (Desire) (1986), Secret de famille (Secret Family) (1989), Histoire de Lou (History of Lou) (1990), Devi (1992), L’homme fatal (Fatal man) (1995), Les hommes, etc. (Men, etc.) (2003), Au Royaume des Femmes (The Kingdom of Women) (2007), and Les Naufragés de l’île Tromelin (The Castaways of Tromelin island) (2009). Frain regularly participates in actions in favor of the Tibetan cause. She is an ambassador for the association Aide à l'enfance tibétaine (Aid to Tibetan Children) and La Voix de l'enfant (The Voice of the child). She is also a member of the honor committee of l'ADMD (Association for the Right to Die with Dignity). Themes Two deep currents have been noted in Frain's work: a passion for issues concerning women's status and a marked predilection for the Orient—the two often overlapping. Her book, Beauvoir in love (2012), based on a survey in the United States by the University of Columbus, Ohio, shed light on Simone Beauvoir's misunderstood passion for the American writer Nelson Algren. She orchestrated courses on Beauvoir and illuminated some of Beauvoir's psychological features hitherto ignored, often retouching the biased and even negative portrait that Beauvoir made of her American lover after their separation. Frain also stressed the role of Algren in the genesis of The Second Sex. A great traveler, Irene attributes her predilection for Asia to her birth in Lorient, a historic port of the East India Company, formerly spelled L'Orient. Several of her travel stories demonstrate this predilection: Quai des Indes (East India Dock) (1992) which recounts her investigation of the famous Indian bandit woman Phoolan Devi, La vallée des hommes perdus (The Valley of Lost Men) (1995) in collaboration with cartoonist André Juillard, Pour que refleurisse le monde (To flourish the world) (2002) with Jetsun