Gabrielle Wittkop
Gabrielle Wittkop (née Menardeau) (1920-2002) was a French writer. She was born in Nantes. She married Justus Wittkop, a Nazi deserter, in Paris and moved with him to Germany in 1946 after the end of the Second World War.
Her first book, on the German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann was published in German in 1966. Her first novel Le Necrophile (The Necrophiliac, 1972) was published in 1972 by Régine Desforges. She wrote several highly regarded novels and travelogues. She also contributed to the art pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
After her partner committed suicide, she wrote an account of it in Hemlock (1988). She herself committed suicide in 2002, after she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Although popular in France and Germany, Wittkop's works are not widely available in English. The Necrophiliac was translated in a Canadian edition by Don Bapst in 2011.
(from Wikipedia)
“Quand je serai la longue chrysalide, pareille à ce mort inconnu fleuri de corolles jaunes et porté comme un arbre vers les bûchers, quand mon front sera de cire, ma chevelure sèche et noyée, mon corps une corne creuse où mugiront les tritons de la mort, quand mes doigts seront gantés de cuir mou, lorsque mes yeux seront de chaux, astéries torturées.”