Marguerite Audoux

Marguerite Audoux (1863-1937) was a French novelist who rose from orphanhood, farm labor, and seamstress work to literary acclaim with her autobiographical debut Marie-Claire (1910), which won the Prix Femina and inspired the women's magazine of the same name. Orphaned young, she spent years in a Bourges orphanage before moving to Paris, where encouragement from intellectuals like Octave Mirbeau led to her success, though later works like L'Atelier de Marie-Claire (1920) garnered less attention.Encyclopedia.com.