Catherine Pozzi

Catherine Pozzi

Catherine Pozzi was born in 1882 in Paris into a cultured family of the upper bourgeoisie. His father, the prestigious physician and amateur poet, Samuel Pozzi, is said to have been one of the models who inspired Marcel Proust to be the character of Doctor Cottard. Catherine was friends with Colette, Anna de Noailles and Rainer Maria Rilke, among many other intellectuals of her time. Her love relationship with the poet Paul Valéry, whom she met in 1920, caused a shock in her life, filled her and ended up destroying her. It was eight years of total communion and heartbreaking disputes. In 1927 he published Agnès, which soon became a cult work. This impressive autobiographical text, his extensive diary (which occupied him most of his life) and his short poetry were enough to grant him a very singular and main place, although still too secret, in twentieth-century French literature. He died of tuberculosis in 1934.