Place Mireille Havet

Place Mireille Havet is a small public square in the eleventh arrondissement that honors a poet whose work remained hidden for decades. It was officially named in two thousand six to commemorate Mireille Havet, a writer who moved in the inner circles of Jean Cocteau and Colette during the early twentieth century. She was often called the little poetess by her contemporaries, though her literary legacy was only fully realized long after her death. Her personal diaries, which she maintained from nineteen thirteen until nineteen twenty-nine, were discovered in nineteen ninety-five and later published to great acclaim. These writings offered a rare, candid glimpse into her life, her struggles with addiction and health, and her experiences as an openly lesbian woman in Paris. The square stands as a quiet tribute to this complex figure whose voice, silenced for so long, eventually found its way back to the public consciousness.