Paul Adam (French novelist)W
Paul Adam (French novelist)

Paul Adam was a French novelist who became an early proponent of Symbolism in France, and one of the founders of the Symbolist review Le Symboliste.

Guillaume ApollinaireW
Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian descent.

Louis AragonW
Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review Littérature. He was also a novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.

Emmanuelle ArsanW
Emmanuelle Arsan

Marayat Rollet-Andriane, formerly Marayat Krasaesin or her birthname Marayat Bibidh, known by the pen name Emmanuelle Arsan, was a French novelist of Thai origin, best known for the novel featuring the fictional character Emmanuelle, a woman who sets out on a voyage of sexual self-discovery under varying circumstances. It was later claimed that the real author of the book was her husband, Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane.

Georges BatailleW
Georges Bataille

Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, consumerism, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, and poetry, explored such subjects as erotism, mysticism, surrealism, and transgression. His work would prove influential on subsequent schools of philosophy and social theory, including poststructuralism.

Pierre-Jean de BérangerW
Pierre-Jean de Béranger

Pierre-Jean de Béranger was a prolific French poet and chansonnier (songwriter), who enjoyed great popularity and influence in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity in the decades following his death. He has been described as "the most popular French songwriter of all time" and "the first superstar of French popular music".

Pierre BourgeadeW
Pierre Bourgeade

Pierre Bourgeade was a French man of letters, playwright, poet, writer, director, journalist, literary critic and photographer. A descendant of Jean Racine, he was also the brother-in-law of the writer Paule Constant.

Nicolas ChorierW
Nicolas Chorier

Nicolas Chorier was a French lawyer, writer, and historian. He is known especially for his historical works on Dauphiné, as well as his erotic dialogue called The School of Women, or The Seven Flirtatious Encounters of Aloisia.

Charles ColléW
Charles Collé

Charles Collé was a French dramatist and songwriter.

Anne DesclosW
Anne Desclos

Anne Cécile Desclos was a French journalist and novelist who wrote under the pseudonyms Dominique Aury and Pauline Réage, and is best known for her erotic novel Histoire d'O.

Robert DesnosW
Robert Desnos

Robert Desnos was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.

Denis DiderotW
Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment.

Marguerite DurasW
Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu, known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.

Pierre-François Hugues d'HancarvilleW
Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville

Pierre-François Hugues, known as 'baron d'Hancarville' was an art historian and historian of ideas.

Henry de KockW
Henry de Kock

Paul Henry de Kock, better known as Henry de Kock, was a 19th-century French playwright, novelist, and chansonnier, famous for his salacious novels.

Jacques Rochette de La MorlièreW
Jacques Rochette de La Morlière

Charles-Jacques-Louis-Auguste Rochette de La Morlière, called "Le Chevalier", was an 18th-century French playwright.

Violette LeducW
Violette Leduc

Violette Leduc was a French author.

Jean-Baptiste Louvet de CouvrayW
Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray

Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, politician, and diplomat.

Pierre LouÿsW
Pierre Louÿs

Pierre Louÿs was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature.

Sylvain MaréchalW
Sylvain Maréchal

Sylvain Maréchal was a French essayist, poet, philosopher and political theorist, whose views presaged utopian socialism and communism. His views on a future golden age are occasionally described as utopian anarchism. He was editor of the newspaper Révolutions de Paris.

Catherine MilletW
Catherine Millet

Catherine Millet is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine Art Press, which focuses on modern art and contemporary art.

Alfred de MussetW
Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist. Along with his poetry, he is known for writing the autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle.

André-Robert Andréa de NerciatW
André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat

André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat was a French novelist, best known for his novel Le Diable au corps.

Anaïs NinW
Anaïs Nin

Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, known professionally as Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of composer Joaquín Nin and Rosa Culmell, a classically trained singer. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an author.

Joséphin PéladanW
Joséphin Péladan

Joséphin Péladan was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism. He established the Salon de la Rose + Croix for painters, writers, and musicians sharing his artistic ideals, the Symbolists in particular.

Louis PerceauW
Louis Perceau

Louis Perceau was a 20th-century French polygraph. He used several pseudonyms including Helpey bibliographe poitevin, Dr. Ludovico Hernandez, Alexandre de Vérineau, Un vieux journaliste, Radeville et Deschamps, marquis Boniface de Richequeue, sometimes jointly with Fernand Fleuret.

Benjamin PéretW
Benjamin Péret

Benjamin Péret was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.

RachildeW
Rachilde

Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery. Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a symbolist author and the most prominent woman in literature associated with the Decadent Movement of fin de siècle France.

Nicolas-Edme RétifW
Nicolas-Edme Rétif

Nicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif, also known as Rétif or Restif de la Bretonne, was a French novelist. The term retifism for shoe fetishism was named after him.

Alina ReyesW
Alina Reyes

Alina Reyes is a French writer, best known for her literary treatment of eroticism.

Christiane RochefortW
Christiane Rochefort

Christiane Rochefort was a French feminist writer. She was born into a left-wing working class Parisian family; her father joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Rochefort worked as a journalist and spent fifteen years as a press attaché to the Cannes Film Festival before publishing her first novel, Le Repos du guerrier, in 1958. Like several of her later novels, Le Repos du guerrier was a bestseller; in 1962 it was adapted into a popular film directed by Roger Vadim and starring Brigitte Bardot. Her novels are divided between social realist satires set in present-day France and utopian or dystopian fantasies. She won the Prix Médicis in 1988. Rochefort's novels also have strong sexual elements.

Marquis de SadeW
Marquis de Sade

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. In his lifetime some of these were published under his own name while others, which de Sade denied having written, appeared anonymously. De Sade is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, suffering, anal sex, crime, and blasphemy against Christianity. He became infamous for his numerous sexual crimes and abuse against young men, women, and children. He claimed to be a proponent of absolute freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion, or law. The words sadism and sadist are derived from his name.

Claude-Henri de Fusée de VoisenonW
Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon

Claude-Henri de Fusée, abbé de Voisenon was a French playwright and writer.