Zoé Oldenbourg’s Followers (31)

Zoé Oldenbourg

Born

in Saint Petersberg, Russian Federation

March 31, 1916

Died

November 08, 2002

Genre

Literature & Fiction, History, Historical Fiction

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Zoé Oldenbourg (Russian: Зоя Серге́евна Ольденбург) (March 31, 1916–November 8, 2002) was a Russian-born French historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars.

She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.

With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 a Zoé Oldenbourg (Russian: Зоя Серге́евна Ольденбург) (March 31, 1916–November 8, 2002) was a Russian-born French historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars.

She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.

With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.

She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argiles et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948 and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.

She combined a genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. The World is Not Enough, a vast panorama of the twelfth century immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historical novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well.

She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre Angulaire. ...more

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Average rating: 4.01 · 1,257 ratings · 153 reviews · 39 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Crusades 3.99 avg rating — 302 ratings — published 1965 — 48 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The World Is Not Enough by Zoé Oldenbourg, Willard R. Trask (translator) 4.09 avg rating — 255 ratings — published 1946 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Massacre at Montségur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade 3.99 avg rating — 228 ratings — published 1959 — 47 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cornerstone by Zoé Oldenbourg, Edward Hyams 4.06 avg rating — 139 ratings — published 1953 — 40 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Catherine the Great by Zoé Oldenbourg, Anne Laurel Carter (translator), Anne Carter (Translator), Arthur Calder-Marshall (Preface) 3.77 avg rating — 129 ratings — published 1965 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Heirs of the Kingdom by Zoé Oldenbourg, Anne Laurel Carter (translator) 4.11 avg rating — 88 ratings — published 1970 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Destiny of Fire 3.86 avg rating — 65 ratings — published 1960 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cities of the Flesh 4.47 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 1961 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Awakened 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1956 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Argile et cendres 2 it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Zoé Oldenbourg (?)

“Now the wind, which sings and weeps,
Down the dark road swoops and leaps.
Crow’s wings ripping through the clouds
Tear the heavens into shrouds.
Naked tree with shaking boughs
Black and dreadful mops and mows.
Morgan the Fairy sings and sighs,
Morgan sings and Morgan cries,
Morgan moans and Morgan weeps,
Down the dark road swoops and leaps
And within his dwelling creeps
Morgan the Fairy’s icy breath
Bring him to dole and death.
Make him drink from your black cup,
Wine of mulberry make him sup.
So his pain may longer be,
Long his spirit’s agony.
Fill his clothes with biting lice,
Curse his horse with stinging flies,
Crack his bones until he dies.
Strike his nerves with mortal cold
Rot his flesh with creeping mould
So his pain may longer be,
Long his spirit’s agony
And his body maggot’s fee.”
― Zoé Oldenbourg, The Cornerstone

tags: bitter, death, evil, fairies, mortal-coil, mortality

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“Sing, Marie of Arras. Do not forget, Marie of Arras.”
― Zoé Oldenbourg, The Heirs of the Kingdom

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“The flies rose in clouds, so thick that the air in the streets was black and buzzing to the height of a man. The men moved through it as if through a storm of black hail coming, not from above, but from below.

All shiny black and green, heavy as ripe olives, swollen to bursting point with rottenness. They circled slowly, as of they were drunk, and settled anywhere, on the living and the dead.

...The bodies burst open, releasing jets of black fluid, bodies covered with a black snow in which green lights shimmered, a devil's snow that lifted in slow spirals and got in the men's hair until it was crawling with them, got under the cloths they had tied across their mouths, they could not see for then--God be thanked, for even that was better than seeing what lay upon the ground.

--pg 464”
― Zoé Oldenbourg, The Heirs of the Kingdom

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Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

7 votes, 29.2%

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

4 votes, 16.7%

The World Is Not Enough by Zoé Oldenbourg

3 votes, 12.5%

The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy

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Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset

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Zoé Oldenbourg’s Followers (31)

Zoé Oldenbourg

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