A descendant of the Antwerp painter Pierre Paul Rubens, Ry (Rosalie) Boissaux was born on 15 August 1900 in Luxembourg. Her family settled in Dudelange, in the mining basin, where her father obtained a job at ARBED.
From 1919 until her death in 1986, Ry Boissaux lived in Luxembourg City. Her marriage to the dentist Théodore Michel ended after three years. As the mother of an only daughter, Ry Boissaux started working in journalism in the 1930s. In the Luxemburger Zeitung in particular, she created a column devoted to fashion under the pseudonym Furette. At the end of the 1930s, Ry Boissaux was a founding member of the association of the Friends of the House of Victor Hugo and a member of the SELF. In 1939, at the instigation of Nic Ries, founder of Les Cahiers Luxembourgeois, Ry Boissaux published her first collection of stories entitled Blessures. In it she revealed her favourite subjects, which would remain so throughout her work: female psychology, children's stories and animal stories. Later on, folklore and local history were added.
Her masterpiece is undoubtedly her Niki-Chat, published in 1957. Other remarkable works are her books in Lëtzebuergesch, in verse or prose, such as De Vullenzirk am Wantergaart (1954) and Mäin Diddelénger Geschichtebuch (1979), in which the writer brings to life the Dudelange of her childhood.
From 1961 onwards, she took part in Radio-Luxembourg's children's radio programmes in Lëtzebuergesch, to which the title of her book Kannerstonnde 1981 refers.
In 1979, her declining physical strength no longer allowed her to remain in her home, so Ry Boissaux became a resident at the Pescatore Foundation in Luxembourg.
The writer died on 19 February 1986.
Sources :
● Service du Livre Luxembourgeois : Biographie Ry Boissaux, dans: Dossiers L, n°47, fascicule 1.
● Germaine Goetzinger und Claude D. Conter : Boissaux Ry, dans:Luxemburger Autorenlexikon, Centre National de Littérature Mersch, 2007 p. 70.