) was a Greek-born Romaniote

Romaniote

Romaniote may refer to:*Romaniotes *Yevanic language, the language of the Romaniote people...

 Jewish Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 novelist who wrote in French. He worked as a civil servant for various international organizations, such as the International Labour Organization. He became a Swiss citizen in 1919.

Biography

Born Abraham Albert Cohen in Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

, Greece, in 1895, to Greek Jewish parents. Albert’s parents, who owned a soap factory, moved to Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, France when he was a child. Albert Cohen discusses this period in his novel "Le livre de ma mère" (The Book of my Mother). He studied at a private Catholic school. In 1904, he started high school at Lycée Thiers, and graduated in 1913.

In 1914, he left Marseille for Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, Switzerland and enrolled in Law school. He graduated from Law School in 1917 and enrolled in Literature School in 1917 until 1919. In 1919, He became a Swiss citizen. That same year he married Elisabeth Brocher. In 1921, they gave birth to a daughter, Myriam. In 1924 his wife died of cancer. In 1925, Albert became director of Revue Juive (The Jewish Review), a periodical whose writers include Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 and Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

. From 1926 to 1931, he served as a civil servant in Geneva. In 1931 He married his second wife, Marianne Goss.

During the German occupation, in 1940, Albert fled to Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, then to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The Jewish Agency for Palestine then made him responsible to establish contacts with exiled governments. On January 10, 1943, Cohen’s mother died in Marseille. That same year, he met his future third wife, Bella Berkowich. In 1944, he became an attorney for the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees. In 1947, Cohen returned to Geneva. In 1957, He turned down the post of Israeli Ambassador in order to pursue his literary career.

He is buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Veyrier, near Geneva.

Cohen's literature

Through four different books, Cohen's fiction can be considered as one long autobiographical fiction. It is the story of the radiant Solal - Cohen's double - the handsome and successful civil servant of the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 whose charismatic identity is a constant struggle between his Jewish roots and his social status.

His masterpiece, Belle du Seigneur, originally included the novel that was later published as Les valeureux.

Belle du Seigneur is called "the book of love", and tells Solal's passionate, cruel yet realistic love affair with Ariane Deume - a married non-Jewish woman.

In 1968, the novel received the French Academy award. Since then, the novel has been one of the biggest sellers of the prestigious Gallimard White Collection.

Novels, plays, autobiographical works

• Paroles juives - (1921) (Jewish Words)
• Ezéchiel - (1927) - play
• Solal - (1930) translated as Solal of the Solals - (1933)
• Mangeclous - (1938) translated as Nailcruncher - (1940)
• Le livre de ma mère - (1954) translated as Book of my Mother - (1997)
• Belle du Seigneur - (1968) Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
  Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
  Le Grand Prix du Roman is a French literary award, created in 1918, and given each year by the Académie française. Along with the Prix Goncourt, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary awards in France...
  
   translated under the same title - (1995)
• Les valeureux - (1970)
• Ô vous, frères humains - (1972) (O Humans, My Brothers)
• Carnets - (1978, 1979) (Notes)

See also

• Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century
  Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
  The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
  
  , a list which includes Belle du Seigneur

External links

Atelier Albert Cohen