MAUPASSANT Guy de

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was a French writer belonging to the naturalist movement in the second half of the 19th century. When he was ten, he moved to Étretat with his mother and then completed his high school studies in Rouen. He met Gustave Flaubert and became his disciple. Under his wing, he started as a journalist and met Émile Zola. In 1880, he contributed to the naturalist writers collection Les Soirées de Médan (Evenings at Médan) in which he published Boule de Suif. In 1881, he published the highly successful short-story collection La Maison Tellier. In 1883, he then published the novel Une vie, which further increased his fame. Maupassant is also the author of fantasy stories including Le Horla, in which he revealed his deepest fears.

Normandy is a favourite setting in many of Maupassant’s works. His novel Pierre and Jean (1889) is set entirely in Le Havre.