Charles Derennes (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl dəʁɛn]; 4 August 1882 – 27 April 1930) was a French novelist, essayist and poet, the winner of the Prix Femina in 1924.
Biography
Derennes was born in Charente, the son of Gustave, a professor of history, and Marthe Cassan, the daughter of a baker. Charles spent his childhood in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. In 1892, he entered the lyceum of Talence in the suburbs of Bordeaux. There he met the poet Émile Despax from Dax, and Marcel Gounouilhou, future director of the daily La Petite Gironde with whom he would collaborate.
After graduating from the lyceum in 1899, he seemed destined for a career as a teacher by family tradition, and went to Paris to prepare for the entrance examination for the École Normale Supérieure at the Lycée Henri-IV and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, from which he was expelled.
He attended classes at the Sorbonne, obtained a bachelor's degree in letters in 1903, and frequented literary salons such as that of Anna de Noailles and the poetry evenings of the magazine La Plume at the Caveau du Soleil d'Or.
On 11 May 1909, in Paris, he married Rosita Finaly, one of the daughters of Hugo Finaly, founder of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, which ended in divorce on 19 January 1911. During the Great War, he was a military nurse in southwestern France. He married a second time in Paris on 23 March 1916, with Christiane. In 1917, Derennes settled temporarily in the Landes. From 1905, he was part of the group of writers, including Rosny jeune, Paul Margueritte, and Maxime Leroy, which, at the beginning of the 20th century, made Hossegor known and where he stayed regularly until the early 1920s.
