François Mauriac
Encyclopedia
François Mauriac was a French
author
; member of the Académie française
(1933); laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature
(1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
(1958).
, France
. He studied literature at the University of Bordeaux
, graduating in 1905, after which he moved to Paris
to prepare for postgraduate study at the École des Chartes.
On 1 June 1933 he was elected a member of the Académie française, succeeding Eugène Brieux
.
Mauriac had a bitter dispute with Albert Camus
immediately following the liberation of France in World War II. At that time, Camus edited the resistance paper (now an overt daily) Combat while Mauriac wrote a column for Le Figaro. Camus said newly liberated France should purge all Nazi collaborator elements, but Mauriac warned that such disputes should be set aside in the interests of national reconciliation. Mauriac also doubted that justice would be impartial or dispassionate given the emotional turmoil of liberation.
Mauriac also had a bitter public dispute with Roger Peyrefitte
, who criticised the Vatican in books such as Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953). Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time (L'Express) if they did not stop carrying advertisements for Peyrefitte's books. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Peyrefitte's Les Amitiés Particulières and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homosexual tendencies and called him a Tartuffe
.
Mauriac was opposed to French rule in Vietnam, and strongly condemned the use of torture by the French army in Algeria.
In 1952, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature
"for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life". He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
in 1958. He published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of Charles de Gaulle
.
Mauriac's complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1950 and 1956. He encouraged Elie Wiesel
to write about his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust, and wrote a foreword in Elie Wiesel's book, Night
.
He was the father of writer Claude Mauriac
and grandfather of Anne Wiazemsky
, a French actress and author who worked with and married French director Jean-Luc Godard
.
François Mauriac died in Paris on 1 September 1970 and was interred in the Cimetière de Vemars, Val d'Oise, France.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
; member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
(1933); laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
(1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
(1958).
Biography
He was born François Charles Mauriac in BordeauxBordeaux
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...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He studied literature at the University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux is an association of higher education institutions in and around Bordeaux, France. Its current incarnation was established 21 March 2007. The group is the largest system of higher education schools in southwestern France. It is part of the Academy of Bordeaux.There are seven...
, graduating in 1905, after which he moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to prepare for postgraduate study at the École des Chartes.
On 1 June 1933 he was elected a member of the Académie française, succeeding Eugène Brieux
Eugène Brieux
Eugène Brieux , French dramatist, was born in Paris of poor parents.A one-act play, Bernard Palissy, written in collaboration with M...
.
Mauriac had a bitter dispute with Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
immediately following the liberation of France in World War II. At that time, Camus edited the resistance paper (now an overt daily) Combat while Mauriac wrote a column for Le Figaro. Camus said newly liberated France should purge all Nazi collaborator elements, but Mauriac warned that such disputes should be set aside in the interests of national reconciliation. Mauriac also doubted that justice would be impartial or dispassionate given the emotional turmoil of liberation.
Mauriac also had a bitter public dispute with Roger Peyrefitte
Roger Peyrefitte
Roger Peyrefitte was a French diplomat, writer of bestseller novels and gossipy non-fiction, and a defender of gay rights.-Life and work:...
, who criticised the Vatican in books such as Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953). Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time (L'Express) if they did not stop carrying advertisements for Peyrefitte's books. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Peyrefitte's Les Amitiés Particulières and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homosexual tendencies and called him a Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
.
Mauriac was opposed to French rule in Vietnam, and strongly condemned the use of torture by the French army in Algeria.
In 1952, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
"for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life". He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1958. He published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
.
Mauriac's complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1950 and 1956. He encouraged Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
to write about his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust, and wrote a foreword in Elie Wiesel's book, Night
Night (book)
Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father, Shlomo, in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War...
.
He was the father of writer Claude Mauriac
Claude Mauriac
Claude Mauriac was a French author and journalist, eldest son of the author François Mauriac.He was the personal secretary of Charles de Gaulle from 1944 to 1949, before becoming a cinema critic and arts person of Figaro. He is the author of several novels and essays, and co-scripted the movie of...
and grandfather of Anne Wiazemsky
Anne Wiazemsky
Princess Anne Wiazemsky is a French actress and novelist, of the Russian Rurikid family of Princes Vyazemsky-Counts Levashov. Through her mother, she is the granddaughter of François Mauriac. She appeared in Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar and in Godard's films La Chinoise and Week End...
, a French actress and author who worked with and married French director Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
.
François Mauriac died in Paris on 1 September 1970 and was interred in the Cimetière de Vemars, Val d'Oise, France.
Awards and honors
- 1926 — Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
- 1933 — Member of the Académie française
- 1952 — Nobel Prize in Literature
- 1958 — Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
Novels, novellas and short stories
- 1913 - L'Enfant chargé de chaînes («Young Man in Chains», tr. 1961)
- 1914 - La Robe prétexte («The Stuff of Youth», tr. 1960)
- 1920 - La Chair et le Sang («Flesh and Blood», tr. 1954)
- 1921 - Préséances («Questions of Precedence», tr. 1958)
- 1922 - Le Baiser au lépreux («The Kiss to the Leper», tr. 1923 / «A Kiss to the Leper», tr. 1950)
- 1923 - Le Fleuve de feu («The River of Fire», tr. 1954)
- 1923 - Génitrix («Genetrix», tr. 1950)
- 1923 - Le Mal («The Enemy», tr. 1949)
- 1925 - Le Désert de l'amour («The Desert of Love», tr. 1949) (Awarded the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie françaiseGrand Prix du roman de l'Académie françaiseLe 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...
, 1926.) - 1927 - Thérèse Desqueyroux («Thérèse», tr. 1928 / «Thérèse Desqueyroux», tr. 1947 and 2005)
- 1928 - Destins («Destinies», tr. 1929 / «Lines of Life», tr. 1957)
- 1929 - Trois Récits A volume of three stories: Coups de couteau, 1926; Un homme de lettres, 1926; Le Démon de la connaissance, 1928
- 1930 - Ce qui était perdu («Suspicion», tr. 1931 / «That Which Was Lost», tr. 1951)
- 1932 - Le Nœud de vipères («Vipers' Tangle», tr. 1933 / «The Knot of Vipers», tr. 1951)
- 1933 - Le Mystère Frontenac («The Frontenac Mystery», tr. 1951 / «The Frontenacs», tr. 1961)
- 1935 - La Fin de la nuit («The End of the Night», tr. 1947)
- 1936 - Les Anges noirs («The Dark Angels», tr. 1951 / «The Mask of Innocence», tr. 1953)
- 1938 - Plongées A volume of five stories: Thérèse chez le docteur, 1933 («Thérèse and the Doctor», tr. 1947); Thérèse à l'hôtel, 1933 («Thérèse at the Hotel», tr. 1947); Le Rang; Insomnie; Conte de Noël.
- 1939 - Les Chemins de la mer («The Unknown Sea», tr. 1948)
- 1941 - La Pharisienne («A Woman of Pharisees», tr. 1946)
- 1951 - Le Sagouin («The Weakling», tr. 1952 / «The Little Misery», tr. 1952) (A novella)
- 1952 - Galigaï («The Loved and the Unloved», tr. 1953)
- 1954 - L'Agneau («The Lamb», tr. 1955)
- 1969 - Un adolescent d'autrefois («Maltaverne», tr. 1970)
- 1972 - Maltaverne (the unfinished sequelUnfinished workAn unfinished work is creative work that has not been finished. Its creator may have chosen never to finish it or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances outside of their control such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have...
to the previous novel; posthumously published.)
Plays
- 1938 - Asmodée («Asmodée; or, The Intruder», tr. 1939 / «Asmodée: A Drama in Three Acts», tr. 1957)
- 1945 - Les Mal Aimés
- 1948 - Passage du malin
- 1951 - Le Feu sur terre
Poetry
- 1909 - Les Mains jointes
- 1911 - L'Adieu à l'Adolescence
- 1925 - Orages
- 1940 - Le Sang d'Atys
External links
- Le site littéraire François Mauriac
- The François Mauriac Centre at Malagar (Saint-Maixant, Gironde)
- Université McGill: le roman selon les romanciers Inventory and analysis of François Mauriac's non-noveltistic writings