The French writer Françoise Bourdin is dead. The successful novelist died at the age of 70, as her publisher announced on Monday. With more than 15 million books sold, she was one of the most widely read authors in France. She published at least one novel every year. Her first book was published before she was of legal age.

Despite her great success with readers, she was largely ignored by the French literary world. Family stories were at the center of her work. The family is the novel material par excellence, she once wrote, according to her publisher. "Because it represents a reduced society with its secrets, its passions, its grudges, its rivalries, its jealousies and its pettiness."

Press release publisher Website of the author