Memorial service for Germaine BrČe planned for Nov. 6

By Cheryl V. Walker
(336) 758-5237
October 30, 2001

Friends and family will gather Nov. 6 to remember and honor Germaine BrČe, a retired Kenan Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University who died Sept. 22.

The memorial service, which is open to the public, will be held at 4 p.m. in Brendle Recital Hall.

BrČe was an internationally renowned authority on 20th century French literature. She was 93 when she died in Winston-Salem.

BrČe wrote and lectured extensively for decades on such writers as Marcel Proust, Andre Gide, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. She was a personal friend of Camus, who she knew for 15 years.

Her books include "Marcel Proust," "Andre Gide," "Camus," "Twentieth Century French Literature" and "Camus and Sartre: Crisis and Commitment." Her groundbreaking books on French writers remain standards in her field. She is credited with introducing a generation of American teachers and scholars to modern French literature.

BrČe, who retired from Wake Forest in 1984, received Wake Forest's highest honor, the Medallion of Merit, in 1994.