Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria on August 1, 1936. At the age of 17, he went to work for the French designer Christian Dior. After Dior's death in 1957, Saint Laurent was credited with salvaging the designer's collection, continuing the house's legacy, and saving it from financial disaster. He left Dior in 1962 and started his own label YSL. He was known for his sleek haute couture and his ready to wear styles. In 1983, he was the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He showed his last collection in 2002 and died on June 1, 2008.
Marguerite Duras may well be the most important French writer of our day. Born in Indochina, she went to Paris at the age of 17 and studied at the Sorbonne. During World War II, she joined the Resistance and published her first books. After the liberation, like many intellectuals, she became a member of the Communist party (from which she was expelled in 1955). Her fame in literature dates from The Sea Wall (1953) about white settlers in Vietnam and based loosely on her childhood. Seeking meaning and fulfillment, the characters in her novels are sacrificed to the ever-flowing tide of existence, and life is perhaps over before they are fully aware of what has been happening. Associated early… on with the "new novelists," Duras's work has taken on a density and power that sets her apart by its obsessive exploration of the dual theme of love and death. In 1959 she wrote her first film scenario, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and has since been involved in a number of other films, including India Song, Baxter, Vera Baxter, Le Camion (The Truck), and The Lover.