The Literary Correspondence of Nathalie Sarraute and Mary McCarthy

This article studies the friendship of two radically different writers in light of correspondence, found in American archives, which has not yet been accounted for. Letters exchanged between McCarthy, Sarraute, and their contemporaries reveal a friendship more complex than either writer publicly admitted. I illustrate the way in which the friendship took shape, and ultimately fell apart, within a context of literary institutions, both French and American, such as the New York Review of Books, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and a bona fide circle of female intellectuals of the Left.