Bonjour Tristesse

Françoise Sagan was 18 years old when she wrote Bonjour Tristesse. Born Françoise Quoirez in 1935 to a well-off bourgeois family in southwestern France, she grew up surrounded by books. She was educated at Catholic schools before briefly studying at the Sorbonne, where she began drafting the novel that would bring her national and international recognition. The book’s title, translated in English as “Hello, Sadness,” is taken from a line in Paul Éluard’s poetry, and it reflects Sagan’s early engagement with literary modernism and emotional ambivalence.

Upon publication, Bonjour Tristesse was an immediate success. Its concise prose, detached tone, and exploration of adolescent disaffection differentiated it from other postwar fiction. Critics drew comparisons with the existentialist works of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, though Sagan did not explicitly align herself with any philosophical movement. The novel’s treatment of sensuality, emotional detachment, and moral uncertainty challenged literary norms and startled contemporary readers. The book won the Prix des Critiques and was translated into multiple languages. 

Sagan’s youth added to the novel’s notoriety: A teenage girl writing about adult relationships and existential malaise was highly unusual in 1950s France.