The Impudent Ones

2

The legend that Marguerite Duras created herself—that she grew up extremely poor and suffered at the hands of a dominating and indifferent mother and an abusive older brother—rests mostly on two of her books, The Sea Wall and Wartime Writings. Inspired by real-life family events, these are nevertheless mostly fictional accounts. Duras’s Wartime Writings, which include ostensible reminiscences about her youth, are not actual diaries and need to be analyzed carefully in order to separate fact from fiction.