Jean rhys biography
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Jean Rhys
British novelist (–)
Jean Rhys, CBE (REESS;[3] born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August – 14 May ) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.[4] In , she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her writing.
Early life
[edit]Rhys's father, William Rees Williams, was a Welsh medical doctor and her mother, Minna Williams, née Lockhart, a third-generation Dominican Creole of Scots ancestry.[citation needed] ("Creole" was broadly used in those times to refer to any person born on the island, whether they were of europeisk or African descent, or both.) She had a brother. Her mother's family had an estate, a former plantation, on the island.[citation needed] • August 24, Birth of Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams at Roseau, Dominica. Sails away from Dominica to England. Attends the Perse School, Cambridge. Attends Academy of Dramatic Art Tours England as a chorus girl. Her father Dr. Rees Williams dies at Roseau Marries Jean Lenglet and moves to Paris. 29 Dec., birth of a son who dies three weeks later. Meets the American writer Ford Madox Ford in Paris. Begins to write short stories. Birth of her daughter Maryvonne. Husband in jail, has an affair with Ford. Divorce. Marriage to Leslie Tilden Smith (Died ) Returns to Dominica. Visits Geneva, meets her brother’s children, stays at Hampstead Estate, visits the Carib Reserve, walks across the island. Marriage to Max Hamer. Works on Wide Sargasso Sea after public interest following a radio broadcast of her work tracks her down to a house in Devon. Rhys's Dominican background is important to her works, playing a part • By Miranda Seymour Buy now Retailers An intimate, revealing and profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea. An obsessive and troubled genius, Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling and unnerving writers of the twentieth century. Memories of a conflicted Caribbean childhood haunt the four fictions that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in s Paris and later in England. Rhys’s experiences of heartbreak, poverty, notoriety, breakdowns and even imprisonment all became grist for her writing, forming an iconic ‘Rhys woman’ whose personality – vulnerable, witty, watchful and angry – was often mistaken, and still is, for a self-portrait. Many details of Rhys’s life emerge from her memoir, Smile Please and the stories
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I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys
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