Josette Duval • Limited

“Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is a wet, cold night, a dead friend on top of you, and the decision to breathe anyway.”

Duval was also a beloved educator, teaching French at the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"). In Oxford, Mississippi, she occupied a unique space. She was a bridge between the Francophile literary world and the very American, very Southern soil that Faulkner tilled. josette duval

Simone stayed for a month. She did not write the story she intended. Instead, she wrote a long-form essay titled The Midwife of Sainte-Mère , which won the Prix Albert Londres. In it, she described Josette not as a hero or a martyr, but as a repairer . “Courage is not the absence of fear