Harry Burchell Mathews ’51

Harry was born Feb. 14, 1930, in New York City, to Edward and Mary Burchell Mathews. His mother was for many years a patron of the Metropolitan Opera, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

He attended St. Bernard’s School and Groton, dropped out of Princeton in his sophomore year, and graduated from Harvard in 1952.

He and Niki de Saint Phalle — sculptor, film director, and mother of his children — were married in 1950. Two years later they moved to Paris. They were divorced in 1960, and in 1976, he met and later married the French writer Marie Chaix.

In recent years they divided their time between France and Key West. Harry was a distinctive novelist, poet, essayist, translator, and educator. He was a founding director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., and for more than 50 years a contributor to The Paris Review.

For decades Harry was the sole American member of Oulipo, the French literary salon where authors and mathematicians practice what they term “constrained writing.”

Harry died Jan. 25, 2017, in Key West. He is survived by his wife, Marie Chaix; daughter Laura Duke Condominas; son Philip; and their families.