Marcel Proust

One of France’s greatest writers of the 20th century, Marcel Proust (1871-1922) lived mainly in seclusion due to his asthma and poor health. He is chiefly known for his massive seven-part epic À la recherche du temps perdu, variously rendered in English as In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past. Never openly gay during his life, he had homosexual relationships with the writer André Gide and the composer Reynaldo Hahn.