Dorothy Bussy was an English novelist and translator, close to the Bloomsbury Group.
Jocelyne François is a French writer. She is the author of five lesbian novels, and winner of the Prix Femina.
Mireille Best was a French author, known for her works of fiction featuring lesbian characters and themes.
Hélène de Montferrand is a French novelist.
Françoise Mallet-Joris, the pen name of Françoise Lilar, was a Belgian author. She was a member of the Prix Femina committee from 1969 to 1971 and was appointed to the Académie Goncourt from November 1971 to 2011.
Marie Bracquemond was a French Impressionist artist. She was one of four notable women in the Impressionist movement, along with Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), and Eva Gonzalès (1847-1883). Bracquemond studied drawing as a child and began showing her work at the Paris Salon when she was still an adolescent. She never underwent formal art training, but she received limited instruction from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and advice from Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) which contributed to her stylistic approach.
Jeanne Galzy (1883–1977), born Louise Jeanne Baraduc, was a French novelist and biographer from Montpellier. She was a long-time member of the jury for the Prix Femina. Largely forgotten today, she was known as a regional author, but also wrote three novels early in her career that explore lesbian topics; she has been referred to as one of the "pioneers in the writing of lesbian desire and despair."
The Prix Brentano was a literary award given annually by the American bookstore chain Brentano's to a French novel that "illustrate[s] eminently the French cultural ideal". The first award was given in 1929.
Jeunes filles en serre chaude is a 1934 novel by the French author Jeanne Galzy. Its protagonists are young women at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in Sèvres, a suburb of Paris, at the time a girls-only school. The school, which Galzy herself attended, trained girls especially as teachers for the secondary education system. The background for the events in the novel is the 50th anniversary of the secondary school system for women; it is one of many French novels and other (autobiographical) texts of the period in which authors' school and university experiences were recounted.
The École normale supérieure de jeunes filles was a French institute of higher education, in Sèvres, now a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The school educated girls only, especially as teachers for the secondary education system. It was founded on 29 July 1881 on the initiative of Camille Sée, following the Sée-inspired act of the legislature which established lycées for girls. In 1985 it merged with the École normale supérieure of the rue d'Ulm.
The Lycée Lamartine is a French institute of secondary education in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. It combines a collège, a lycée, and a Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles. The school is named for the 19th-century writer Alphonse de Lamartine.
Marie de Régnier, also known by her maiden name Marie de Heredia or her pen-name Gérard d'Houville, was a French novelist and poet, and closely involved in the artistic circles of early twentieth-century Paris.
Eliane Montel was a French physicist and chemist.
Luce Langevin, born Luce Dubus was a French physicist, teacher at Fénelon high school in Paris and a communist activist.
Marie-Magdeleine Carbet, the pen name Anna Marie-Magdeleine, was an Afro-Martiniquais writer and educator. She and her lesbian partner co-wrote poems, stories and songs under the joint pseudonym Carbet, which left them free to explore sensitive topics, usually forbidden to women. She won several literary prizes from French cultural organizations.
Leïla Slimani is a French-Moroccan writer and journalist. She is also a French diplomat in her capacity as the personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. In 2016, she was awarded the Prix Goncourt for her novel Chanson douce.
Marie Le Franc was a French-born writer who found much of her inspiration in Canada.
Anna Cartan was a French mathematician, teacher and textbook author who was a student of Marie Curie and Jules Tannery.
Anne Huré was a French writer who authored eight novels, the first of which, Les Deux moniales, was considered for the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1962.
Marie-Françoise Baslez was a French historian and academic. She specialized in Hellenistic Judaism and primitive Christianity and the persecution faced by the two religious groups.
