Marguerite Aucouturier, a Czech-born French psychoanalyst and wife of well-known Algerian-born French philosopher Jacques Derrida, has died on March 21 at the age of 87 after fighting with Covid19 at Rothschild Foundation’s retirement home in Paris
Trained at the Psychoanalytic Society of Paris, clinician, translator of several works, including those of the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, she married the philosopher Jacques Derrida in 1957.
They had two children: the writer Pierre Alferi as well as Jean Derrida, anthropologist and philosopher.
“Marguerite Derrida has just left us, a whole world is leaving,” announced the Institute of Advanced Studies in Psychoanalysis (IHEP) in a press release dated March 21, 2020.
Born Aucouturier, she had devoted her life to psychoanalysis and to translation.
She is especially renowned for having translated several psychoanalyst works such as Morphology of the tale by Vladimir Propp, Life by Klim Samguine by Maxime Gorki, or Les Cavaliers by Iouri Ianovski.
Marguerite’s father Gustave Aucouturier was a well-known French journalist – he was also editor-in-chief of Agence France-Presse – and translator of great Russian authors.
She appeared in two documentary films where she talks about life with her husband in Ris-Orangis.
