Louis Guilloux

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Louis Guilloux

Louis Guilloux (born January 15, 1899 in Saint-Brieuc ; † October 14, 1980 ibid) was a French writer who, like his friends André Malraux and Albert Camus, represented a literature of social commitment - accordingly he was part of the Resistance during the occupation . In addition to novels and journalistic work, the English teacher also wrote translations. The Prix ​​Louis Guilloux has been named after Guilloux, who received several awards himself, since 1983 .

life and work

Louis Guilloux was the son of a socialist-minded cobbler. A scholarship enabled him to attend high school. At the age of 15 he wrote articles for magazines; soon he dedicated himself avowedly to literature. His Breton hometown of Saint-Brieuc - where he lived as a teacher - he remained true to life. Guilloux had "nothing in common with a Parisian writer," writes Paris expert Ilja Ehrenburg in his memoir. He was modest and free from the “obligatory addiction” of “splitting a few philosophical hairs”. During the Resistance, the resistance fighters met in his house.

In 1924 Guilloux married Renée Tricoire. He was friends with the writers Max Jacob and André Chamson ; this gave him access to the Grasset publishing house, where his first novel was published in 1927. Now Guilloux published several other novels at short intervals, most of which Le sang noir (Black Blood) from 1935 is emphasized. Against the backdrop of the First World War , this book is about the decline of a teased and cut small-town philosophy teacher, but also about the heat among the youth under militarism . His "hero" is based on Guilloux's early, anarchist-minded philosophy teacher Georges Palante , whom he adored. Kindler's New Literature Lexicon speaks of "haunting character studies"; Ehrenburg counts Schwarzes Blut as one of the “best novels of the interwar period”; Jorge Semprún goes even further, counting it among the greatest novels of the entire century. The book, which almost won the Prix ​​Goncourt in 1935, has been translated into several languages. Marcel Maréchal turned it into an opera libretto, set to music by François Fayt and premiered in 2014 under the title The Black Blood .

In 1935 Guilloux, along with Malraux, René Blech, Jean-Richard Bloch and Ehrenburg, was one of the main organizers of the international anti-fascist writers' congress held in Paris. A year later he (like Eugène Dabit ) traveled through the Soviet Union under the direction of André Gides . The disenchantment he suffered prevented Guilloux from joining the Communist Party. However, he became a leader in the international Red Aid , which supported communist prisoners, refugees from fascist Germany or the popular front in Spain. 1945 began his friendship with Albert Camus . In 1948 he traveled with Camus to Algeria, which was enslaved by France . Guilloux's friends also included the philosopher Jean Grenier , who also went to school in Saint-Brieuc, and the essayist Jean Guéhenno , with whom he was in lively correspondence.

After the liberation of France, Guilloux interpreted for the occupation organs of the USA. The conflicting experiences he made were later reflected in his short novel OK Joe! (1976), also in a work by Alice Kaplan . Shortly before his death he was able to edit his diaries and publish a tribute to his old philosophy teacher (1980). He is buried alongside other prominent intellectual workers on the Cimetière Saint-Michel in his native Saint-Brieuc. There and in Rennes , various streets and facilities are named after Louis Guilloux.

Awards

  • 1942 Prix Populiste for Le pain des reves (The bread of dreams)
  • 1949 Prix Théophraste Renaudot for Le jeu de patience (The Puzzle)
  • 1967 Grand Prix National des Lettres for the complete works
  • 1973 Grand Prix de littérature de l'Académie française
  • 1978 Grand Aigle d'Or de la ville de Nice

Works

  • La maison du peuple , Roman, 1927, German Das Volkshaus , Munich 1981, Frankfurt / Main 1983
  • Dossier confidentiel , novel, 1930.
  • Compagnons , narrative, 1931, German companions , Zurich 1950
  • Hymenée , novel, 1932.
  • Le lecteur écrit , Roman, 1933.
  • Angélina , novel, 1934.
  • Le sang noir , Roman, Paris 1935, German Black Blood , East Berlin 1973, Munich 1979 and 1981.
  • Histoires de brigands , Roman, Paris 1936
  • Le pain des rêves . Roman, Paris 1942
  • Le jeu de patience , Roman, Paris 1949.
  • Absent de Paris , Roman, Paris 1952.
  • Parpagnacco ou la conjuration , Roman, Paris 1954.
  • Les batailles perdues , Roman, Paris 1960.
  • Cripure , Roman, 1962 (excerpt from Le sang noir ).
  • La confrontation , Roman, Paris 1967.
  • La Bretagne que j'aime . 1973, with Pascal Hinous and Charles LeQuintrec
    • in German: My beloved Brittany . Bonn 1975
  • OK Joe! , Novel, 1976
    • in German: Okay, Joe! Translated by Karl Heinrich. In: French storytellers from 7 decades , vol. 1, ed. Frauke Rother, Klaus Möckel . Volk und Welt , 2nd edition Berlin 1985, pp. 585–694
  • Coco Perdu. Narrative. Paris 1978
    • in German: Coco Perdu or the unexpected farewell. Narrative. (in the form of a self-talk), Munich 1980, again Frankfurt 1982
  • Souvenirs sur Georges Palante . Calligrammes, Quimper 1980
  • Carnets 1921-1974 . Diaries. 2 volumes 1978, 1982
  • L'Herbe d'oubli . (Memories) 1984 (posthumous)

He also created film / television adaptations of literary classics, e.g. B. 1973 by Roger Martin du Gards Thibault .

literature

  • Francis J. Greene: Louis Guilloux's “Le Sang noir”: A Prefiguration of Sartre's “La Nausée”. In: French Review , Journal of the American Association of Teachers of French, USA, Vol. 43/1969
  • Prigent Edouard: Louis Guilloux , PUB, 1971
  • Walter D. Redfern: Political Novel and Art of Simplicity: Louis Guilloux. In: Journal of European Studies , Vol. 1, 1971
  • Yannick Pelletier: Thèmes et symboles dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Louis Guilloux . Klincksieck-Presses Universitaires de Rennes II, 1979
  • Yannick Pelletier (Ed.): Louis Guilloux , Plein Chant, 1982
  • Mary Jean Matthews Green: Louis Guilloux, an artisan of language , York / SC 1980
  • Jean-Louis Jacob: Guilloux romancier du peuple , Paris 1983
  • Jean-Louis Jacob (Ed.): Louis Guilloux. Colloque de Cerisy . Calligrammes, Quimper 1986
  • Heinz Niermann: Investigations on suicide in the French novel between 1925 and 1945 (Crevel, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Julien Gracq, Guilloux), Münster 1988
  • Yannick Pelletier: Louis Guilloux, de Bretagne et du monde, mémoires d'un responsable . Bibliothèque des Côtes-d'Armor, 1994.
  • Yannick Pelletier (Ed.): Le Mal absolu. Colloque: Louis Guilloux et la guerre, Folle Avoine / Ville de Saint-Brieuc, 1995
  • Jean-Claude Bourlès: Louis Guilloux, le maisons d'encre . Christian Pirot, 1997
  • Henri Godard (Ed.): Louis Guilloux . Dix-neuf / Vingt, 1997
  • Yves Loisel, Louis Guilloux, biography , éditions Coop Breizh, 1998
  • Walter D. Redfern: Louis Guilloux, Ear-witness . Rodopi, Amsterdam 1998
  • Louis Guilloux dossier . Europe (literary magazine) , 1999
  • Yannick Pelletier: Louis Guilloux , Ministère des Affaires Etrangères-ADPF, 1999
  • Yannick Pelletier: Des Ténèbres à l'Espoir . To Here, 1999
  • Henri Godard: Louis Guilloux, novelist de la human condition. Paris 1999
  • Yannick Pelletier: Louis Guilloux et la Bretagne. Blanc Silex, 2004

Movie

  • Roland Savidan, Florence Mahé: Louis Guilloux, l'Insoumis . Société des Amis de Louis Guilloux, RS productions, 70 min, 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Among others: Joseph Conrad , CS Forester , Claude McKay , Margaret Kennedy , John Steinbeck .
  2. ↑ Menschen Jahre Leben , Munich edition 1962/65, Volume II p. 305.
  3. ^ Edition Munich 1988.
  4. ↑ Ehrenburg II p. 305.
  5. ^ Society of Friends , accessed on May 11, 2011.
  6. ↑ Program The Black Blood. Theater Erfurt, 2014/2015 season, p. 16.
  7. ↑ Ehrenburg II p. 369.
  8. ^ Jean Guéhenno - Louis Guilloux: Correspondance 1927-1967. Les paradoxes d'une amitié , La Part Commune Publishing House, 2010.
  9. ↑ On Violent Judgment: Louis Guilloux's Novel about Race, Justice, and the Segregated Army that Liberated France , French Literature Series, Vol. 35, No. 1 (October 1, 2008), pp. 105-122.
  10. ^ Saint-Michel , accessed May 11, 2011.
  11. ↑ A shoemaker's struggle for bread and brotherhood (around 1914) is treated from the perspective of his son.
  12. ↑ 1967 filmed by Jean-Paul Roux.
  13. ↑ 1960 dramatized, filmed in 2007 by Peter Kassovitz .
  14. ↑ 1974 filmed by Jean-Paul Roux. The novel is shaped by the childhood memories of its author.
  15. ↑ From a formal point of view, a complicated novel that mixes social (war, popular front) and personal dramas "kaleidoscopically" (Walter Redfern).
  16. ^ According to Winfried Engler : Lexicon of French Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 388). 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-38802-2 questions the reliability of a biography with the means of the detective novel.
personal data
SURNAME Guilloux, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Brieuc
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1980
Place of death Saint-Brieuc