Georges Bataille

Bataille's difficult childhood (his father blind and paralyzed, died when Georges was a teen; his mother attempted suicide) fuels his last novel, Ma mère, discovered after Georges Bataille's death. In the novel, a pious Catholic boy, planning to become a priest to spite his controlling, atheist father, reveres his free-willed mother. When the father dies, the unfettered mother propels her teenage son into a wild erotic journey. Georges Bataille himself was discharged from the Army during World War I for tuberculosis, studied to be a monk, then renounced Catholicism. He often battled poor health. Bataille's novels were mostly under pseudonyms, and all feature aggressive female protagonists. Artists some consider swayed by Bataille include musician/actress Björk, and her occasional collaborator, experimental film director Matthew Barney. To open his novel Deliverance (1972), James Dickey quoted Bataille. Bataille established and edited a respected scholarly journal, wrote poetry, and essays. Bataille founded a secret society, which was anti-fascist. Tears of Eros is his history of love and violence.

The Batailles' daughter Laurence emulated her stepfather, and her parents: she became a psychiatrist, and acted in Renoir's movie French Cancan (1954). Laurence was arrested for her support of the Algerian revolution.

Georges' first wife Sylvia Bataille was an acclaimed French actress (Jean Renoir's The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) and A Day in the Country (1946), in which Georges played a priest). Bataille worked as an archivist, but had increasing difficulty finding a day job. Sylvia later married the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, whose controversial theories were influenced by the Surrealists, with whom Georges had a turbulent relationship.