Ménalkas
Suzanne de Callias (24 January 1883—4 February 1964) was born in Paris. She remained a pacifist and feminist throughout her life, and went on speaking tours to promote women's suffrage and rights.
Ménalkas was her masculine pseudonym for each work written in collaboration with Willy: "L'Ersatz d'amour" (1923) and "Le Naufragé" (1924), a pair of novels, and "Le Fruit vert" (1927), a short story collection. However, her novels did not sell as well as they were acclaimed, and neither sold more than 10,000 copies.
Afterwards, she contributed articles to magazines like the German-language "Hamburger Fremdenblatt," provided illustrations to various journals, and wrote for various publishers. These brought her grander success. For a significant time, her work built each year on Feminist themes, starting with "Jerry: fragments d'un journal authentique; roman inédit" (1923), where a strong-willed female artist wishes for a child but no man; she courts an intellectual American man to obtain what she wants, and succeeds with a faint, hinted regret. "Monsieur Fayol et sa fille" (1924) depicts the modern woman in public life, "Lucienne et Reinette" (1925) depicts a lesbian relationship, and the nonfiction "Florilège de l’antiféminisme" (1926) exposed inequalities between the sexes around the world.
