Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French writer. Born into a prosperous medical family, he turned increasingly to literature after early journalistic work, translations and a brief period at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. His major work is the seven-volume novel cycle *In Search of Lost Time*, published from 1913 onward and concerned with memory, time and society. Proust received the Prix Goncourt in 1919 for the second volume, *In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower*. His earlier work included articles on the art historian John Ruskin and translations of two of Ruskin’s books. Suffering from asthma, Proust often worked in seclusion in a bedroom lined with cork.