Georges Navel
Georges Navel (actually Charles François Victor Navel , born October 30, 1904 in Pont-à-Mousson , † November 1, 1993 ) was a French writer, laborer, farm worker, beekeeper and printer.
Life
Navel was born as the 13th child to a foundry worker. He was active in left-wing socialist circles and in the trade unions from an early age. He worked for Citroën and Renault, but also as a migrant worker. When Franco launched a coup in Spain against the republic , Navel went to Spain, joined the CNT in Barcelona and took part in the Spanish civil war. Bad health, he returned to France in September 1936 before Franco's victory. At the beginning of the Second World War, Navel was drafted into the army and after the surrender withdrew to the unoccupied south of France, where he did odd jobs and was active in the Resistance . From 1943 he began to work on his work "Travaux". After the war he settled near Paris and worked as an editor in a communist publishing house.
In 1945 his first autobiographical book "Travaux" was published, in which he reports on his years as a wandering worker. It closes with the balance sheet: “There is a sadness of working life from which nothing can heal but participation in political life. I felt in harmony with my class. ”In 1946 he received the“ Prix Sainte-Beuve ” literary prize for the book . In 1950, the equally autobiographical “Parcours” (circular routes) appeared, which extended into the 1940s. Here Navel wanted to find out more about the essence of a proletarian existence.
Two years after “Parcours”, Georges Navel's main work “Sable et limon” was published (1952; “Sand und Schlamm”, an expanded edition was published in 1989). The book contains the letters that Navel had sent to the philosopher and essayist Bernard Groethuysen , whom he had met as a gardener in Nice, since 1935 . Among other things, the correspondence deals with his relationship with the Communist Party, the “only revolutionary force in France”.
Navel was a member of the French Communist Party . He characterized his political position as "liberal-communist".
Works
- Travaux , Stock, 1945
- Parcours , Gallimard, 1950
- Sable et limon , Gallimard, 1952
- Chacun son royaume , Gallimard, 1960
- Passages , Le Sycomore, 1982
- Sable et limon , Gallimard, expanded edition 1989
Translations into German
- Working days . Translated by Hans Joachim Lange. Construction publishing house . Berlin 1950
literature
- Thierry Maricourt: Histoire de la Litterature Libertaire en France . Paris 1990
- Walter Heist: The Worker's Discovery. The proletarian in 19th and 20th century French literature. Munich 1974
- Georges Navel ou la seconde vue . Georges Monti, Cognac 1982
Web links
- Literature by and about Georges Navel in the catalog of the German National Library
- Working days - Complete reproduction of George Navel's first work
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Navel, Georges |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Navel, Charles François Victor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 30, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pont-à-Mousson |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1, 1993 |