Julien Gracq
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| French literature |
|---|
| By category |
| French literary history |
|
Medieval |
| French Writers |
|
Chronological list |
| France Portal |
| Literature Portal |
Julien Gracq (born July 29, 1910) is the pen name of Louis Poirier, a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play and some poetry. His work, influenced by Surrealism and German Romanticism but profoundly original is hard to classify.
Julien Gracq was born at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil in Maine-et-Loire. After baccalauréat, he studied in Paris first at Lycée Henri IV. He then entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1930 and the École libre des sciences politiques.
In 1950 he published in the Empédocle review a fierce attack on contemporary literary culture and literary prizes. When he won the Prix Goncourt for The Opposite Shore (Le Rivage des Syrtes) in the following year, he remained consistent with his criticism and refused the prize.
In 1989, Gracq's work was published by the very prestigious Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. He remains distant from major literary events and remained faithful to his first editor José Corti. He taught history and geography in highschool until he retired in 1970.
In 1932, he read André Breton's Nadja which deeply influenced him. His first novel, The Castle of Argol is dedicated to that surrealist writer to whom he devoted a whole book in 1948.
[edit] Works
- Au château d’Argol, 1938 (novel) (English translation : The Castle of Argol or château d'Argol)
- Un beau ténébreux, 1945 (novel)
- Liberté grande, 1947 (poetry)
- Le Roi pêcheur, 1948 (play)
- André Breton, quelques aspects de l’écrivain, 1948 (critique)
- Le Rivage des Syrtes, 1951 (novel) (English translation : the Opposite shore)
- Prose pour l’Etrangère, 1952
- Penthésilée, 1954
- Un balcon en forêt, 1958 (novel) (English translation : a balcony in the forest)
- Préférences, 1961
- Lettrines, 1967
- La Presqu’île, 1970
- Lettrines II, 1974
- Les Eaux Etroites, 1976
- En lisant en écrivant, 1980
- La Forme d’une ville, 1985
- Autour des sept collines, 1988
- Carnets du grand chemin, 1992
- Entretiens, 2002
