The Last Decade, 1990–99

This chapter recounts Nathalie Sarraute's return to Ivanovo in October 1990 as one of the happiest consequences of the publication of her autobiography Childhood. It details Nathalie's tour to the museumand the House of Literature, her interviews to the press, radio, and TV, and meetings with professors and students in the French department at Ivanovo State University as Ivanovo's most famous writer. It also mentions Nathalie's regular visits to the theatre and the cinema in the company of her granddaughter Nathalie Vierny, who notes her grandmother's attentiveness to the detail of the movies she had just seen. The chapter describes how Nathalie's body deteriorated, in which she experienced pulmonary congestion, difficulty breathing, pains in the chest, and symptoms of tuberculosis (TB). It concludes with Nathalie's death on 19 October 1999, who was then buried alongside her husband, Raymond Sarraute.