Christine Arnothy is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer. She has written numerous books, including J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir (1955) ( I am Fifteen and I Do Not Want to Die'). It is a book following her life and escape from Budapest during the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

She left Hungary, crossing the border with her parents. On her arrival in France, she had only one thing: a journal of her life in Budapest.

Arnothy eventually married Claude Bellanger (1909–1978).

Her book J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir was translated into English. I Am Fifteen and I Do Not Want to Die is a personal record of her experience as a teenager during the 1945 siege of Budapest. It was reviewed in Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

in 1956. Good reviews also from The Daily Express,The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Herald Tribune

Herald Tribune

Herald Tribune may refer to:* International Herald Tribune, widely read international newspaper, based in Paris since 1887*Sarasota Herald-Tribune, daily newspaper in Florida*New York Herald Tribune, daily newspaper in New York, created in 1924...

, San Francisco Examiner, Kirkus, L.A. Herald Express, Chicago Sunday Tribune and The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 There's an ulterior sequel, It Is Not So Easy to Live (but this second part doesn't come from her journal but from her memory);where she chronicles her escape via Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

,where she eventually settled and married.

She also wrote a couple of detective stories under the pseudonym William Dickinson and a lot of books. No one work has been so successful as J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir, which has been considered by some authors (i.e.: Sándor Márai

Sándor Márai

Sándor Márai was a Hungarian writer and journalist.-Biography:...

) as a masterpiece of the literature about the Second World War.

Sources

• Citatum