Catherine Gradwohl (2 December 1949 – 2 January 2023), better known as Catherine David, was a Franco-American novelist, essayist and literary critic.
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Life and career
Catherine David is of Jewish Alsatian descent on her father's side and American Catholic on her mother's side.
After her secondary studies, David spent one year at the Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Graduated from Sciences Po, she also holds a degree in history from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University.
With philosopher Jean-Paul Enthoven, she had a son, Raphaël, agrégé in philosophy and audiovisual chronicler.
After she worked with several publishing houses (Gallimard, Jean-Jacques Pauvert), she turned to literary criticism and journalism at the Nouvel Observateur in the cultural field – literature, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, human sciences, history of sciences, prehistory, astrophysics.
In 1984, she won the Prix Contrepoint for her first novel, L'Océan miniature.
David died in Paris on 2 January 2023, at the age of 73.
Works
1983: L'Océan miniature, novel, Éditions du Seuil, Prix Contrepoint
1990: Simone Signoret ou la mémoire partagée, biographical essay, Éditions Robert Laffont
1994: La Beauté du geste, essay on piano and Tai chi, Calmann-Lévy
1995: Passage de l'Ange, novel, Calmann-Lévy
2001: L'Homme qui savait tout, le roman de Pic de la Mirandole, novel, Éditions du Seuil
2003: Clandestine, narration, Éditions du Seuil
2006: Crescendo, avis aux amateurs, series "un endroit où aller", Actes Sud
2010: Les Violons sur le moi : pourquoi la célébrité nous fascine, cartoons by Jean-Jacques Sempé, essay, Éditions Denoël
In collaboration
1996: L'Occident en quête de sens, anthology, preface by Jean Daniel, Maisonneuve et Larose
1998: Little Bang : Le roman des commencements, with Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, novel, Nil Éditions
1998: Égyptes, anthologie de l'ancien Empire à nos jours, anthology, Maisonneuve et Larose
1998: Entretiens sur la fin des temps, conversations with Stephen Jay Gould, Jean Delumeau, Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco, Fayard
2000: Sommes-nous seuls dans l'Univers ?, conversations with Jean Heidmann, Alfred Vidal-Madjar, Nicolas Prantzos and Hubert Reeves, Fayard
2003: Sous le regard des dieux, conversation with Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, Albin Michel