Anaïs Ségalas

Anaïs Ségalas, born Anne Caroline Menard (24 September 1811, Paris – 31 August 1893, Paris) was a French playwright, poet and novelist. She was a member of Société La Voix des Femmes in Paris in 1848 and of other Parisian feminist organizations.

Life
Anne Caroline Menard was born on 24 September 1811 in the former 6th arrondissement of Paris. She was the only daughter of Charles Menard and Anne Bonne Portier, a Creole from Santo Domingo. Her father, Charles Menard, was a vegetarian, activist of the animal cause, misanthrope. When he died, Menard was 11 years old.

Menard got acquainted with the neighbor Jean Victor Ségalas, a lawyer at the Royal Court and they got married on 17 January 1827. She took the name Anaïs Ségalas and made her husband promise never to oppose her passion for writing. Ségalas’ first poems were published in 1827. In 1829, La Psyché published her first essays, and in 1831 eight poems Les Algériennes appeared in La Gazette littéraire. In mid-1830, Ségalas collaborated with a Christian newspaper Le Journal des Femmes.

On 15 December 1838, Ségalas gave birth to her daughter Bertile Claire Gabrielle whom she dedicated the volume Enfantines published in 1844. In 1847, Ségalas published a collection of moralizing and didactic poems of various kinds of states of woman La Femme. The next year, in 1848, she became a member of Société La Voix des Femmes in Paris and of other Parisian feminist organizations.

In the 1840s, Ségalas started to write theater plays. In 1847, her first play La Loge de l'Opéra, a drama in 3 acts, was performed at the Odeon theater. In the following years her plays Le Trembleur, Les Deux Amoureux de la grand’mère and Les Absents ont raison were staged in Paris theaters.

In 1861, she published a collection of poetry, Idéal et Réalités.

Aged 81, Ségalas wrote her last comedy in 1 act Deux passions which had a world success.

Anaïs Ségalas died on 31 August 1893 in Paris. In 1917, the French Academy created the Anaïs Ségalas Prize for Literature and Philosophy, intended to reward the work of talented women. The last prize was awarded in 1989.

Works

 * Les Algériennes, poésies, 1831
 * Les Oiseaux de passage, poésies, 1837
 * Enfantines, poésies à ma fille, 1844
 * Poésies, 1844
 * La Femme, poésies, 1847
 * Contes du nouveau Palais de Cristal, 1855
 * Nos bons Parisiens, poésies, 1864
 * La Semaine de la marquise, 1865
 * Les Mystères de la maison, 1865
 * La Dette du cœur, poésies, 1869
 * La Vie de feu, 1875
 * Les Mariages dangereux, 1878
 * Les Rieurs de Paris, 1880
 * Les Romans du wagon. Le Duel des femmes. Le Bois de la Soufrière. Un roman de famille. Le Figurant, 1884
 * Le Livre des vacances. L'Oncle d'Amérique et le neveu de France. Zozo, Polyte et Marmichet. Une rencontre sur la neige, 1885
 * Récits des Antilles. Le Bois de la Soufrière, 1885
 * Les Deux Fils, 1886
 * Poésies pour tous, 1886
 * Le Compagnon invisible, 1888

Theater plays

 * La Loge de l’Opér, 1847
 * Le Trembleur, 1849
 * Les Deux Amoureux de la grand’mère, 1850
 * Les Absents ont raison, 1852
 * Les Inconvénients de la sympathie, 1854
 * Deux passions, 1893