What a woman

AS WRITERS go, few lives are as well known as that of George Sand. Cross-dresser, divorcée, writer under a man's name, lover of Alfred de Musset and Frédéric Chopin: no wonder the interest in Sand's life has long been much greater than the attention given to her work.

However, as France remembers the bicentenary of her birth this summer with an exhibition at the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris, a music festival at her home in Nohant and more exhibits, conferences, plays and concerts throughout the year, Sand studies are moving on. It was Sand's writing, rather than her colourful life, that scholars gathered to discuss at a week-long conference held at the beginning of July in Cerisy-la-Salle. And Elizabeth Harlan, author of a forthcoming new biography of Sand, ranks her as in the same league as Flaubert or Balzac.