Charles-Roux

Edmonde (1920). French journalist and writer, he won the Goncourt Prize in 1966 for the novel Oublier Palermo. A great friend of Chanel, she published several books about her, among which are L’Irregulière (Mon itinéraire Chanel) in 1974 and Le Temps Chanel in 1979. In the immediate post-war period (1947-49) she began her journalism career at Elle and for sixteen years, from 1950 to 1966, she was chief editor of the French edition of Vogue. A member of the Goncourt Academy, she received several tributes, including the War Cross (or Croix de Guerre) for her activities during World War II and the Literary Grand Prix of Provence in 1977. The daughter of a celebrated French diplomat (her father was the French Ambassador to the Vatican during the 1930s) she married Gastone Deferre, who was for many years the socialist mayor of Marseille.