François Charles Mauriac (French pronunciation:[fʁɑ̃swaʃaʁlmoʁjak],
Occitan: Francés Carles Mauriac; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of theAcadémie française (from 1933), and laureate of the
Nobel Prize in Literature (1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958. He was a life-long
Catholic.
Biography
François Charles Mauriac was born in
Bordeaux, 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.[1]
A former
Action française supporter, he turned to the left during the
Spanish Civil War, criticizing the Catholic Church for its support of Franco. After the fall of France to the
Axis during the
Second World War, he briefly supported the collaborationist régime of Marshal
Pétain, but joined the
Resistance as early as December 1941. He was the only member of the
Académie française to publish a Resistance text with the
Editions de Minuit.
Mauriac had a bitter dispute with
Albert Camus immediately following the
Liberation of France. At that time, Camus edited the Resistance paper Combat (thereafter an overt daily, until 1947), 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 the Liberation. Despite having been viciously criticised by
Robert Brasillach, he campaigned against his execution.
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, hypocrite.[2]
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".[3] He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958.[4] 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
Jewish teenager during the
Holocaust, and wrote the foreword to Elie Wiesel's book Night.
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)
Dudley Edwards, Owen (1982), review of Mauriac: The Politics of a Novelist by Malcolm Scott, in Murray, Glen (ed.), Cencrastus No. 8, Spring 1982, pp. 46 & 47,
ISSN0264-0856
Mauriac, Caroline (1981), François Mauriac: Lettres d'une vie (1904 - 1969),
Bernard Grasset, Paris