Maurice Constantin-Weyer

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Maurice Constantin-Weyer (born April 24, 1881 in Bourbonne-les-Bains as Maurice Constantin , † October 18, 1964 in Vichy ) was a French writer.

After the marriage in 1920 he added the name of his second wife Germaine Weyer to his name and called himself and published under Constantin-Weyer.

Life

Constantin-Weyer went to school in Paris and Avignon, was interested in natural history and, after visiting the entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre, began studying natural science and medicine at the Sorbonne in 1898. In 1901 he broke it off and did his military service. He lived in a small, mostly French-speaking village in Manitoba , Canada , from 1902 to 1914 , which influenced many of his books.

In 1907 he became a Canadian citizen. He also caught up with his mother and sister, who married his friend, the painter Raoul Devillario, who had also emigrated to Canada with Constantin-Weyer. In 1910 he married Dinah Proulx, with whom he had three children. He later separated from her. He made his way as a trapper, fur and horse dealer, journalist, lumberjack and charcoal burner. In 1914 he volunteered for the First World War, he became an officer, was seriously wounded, received high awards (including Knight of the Legion of Honor ) and fought at the front in Verdun and Saloniki. After the war he stayed in France as a journalist, he became the head of the Paris-Center magazine in Nevers, then editor-in-chief of the Journal du Center et de l'Ouest in Poitiers. After the success of his first novels from 1931, he worked as a writer. He then lived in Orléans and later in Vichy. He had two other children with his second wife.

His novels are mostly adventure stories set in West Canada. He has also published short stories, essays, plays, biographies (for example on Samuel de Champlain , Robert Cavelier de La Salle , Napoleon, Shakespeare), film scripts and non-fiction books. He also translated from English.

In 1928 he received the Prix ​​Goncourt for his novel Un homme se penche sur son passé . It is set on the Canadian prairies at the beginning of the 20th century and combines descriptions of nature and descriptions of the hard life in the wilderness with a love story. The novel sold over 100,000 copies and was made into a film in 1958, directed by Willy Rozier, with Jacques Bergerac and Barbara Rütting , German title Love in the Storm . Two other of his novels were also filmed: La loi du nord, 1939, as La piste du nord by Jacques Feyder with Michèle Morgan and Charles Vanel and Un sourire dans la tempête , 1950, by René Chanas.

He also worked as a watercolor painter.

Works (selection)

  • Un homme se penche sur son passé. Rieder 1928
    • Übers. Hermann Strehle: … a look back and then…. Propylaea, Berlin 1929
  • La Bourrasque, 1925
  • Vers l'ouest ', 1921
  • Cavalier de La Salle, 1927
  • Clairière. Récits du Canada. 1929
  • Cinq éclats de Silex
    • Übers. Hermann Strehle: Canadian Nights. A. Blau, Berlin 1929
  • Un sourire dans la tempête, 1934
  • The story of the settler Jean Baptiste in Canada, in Atlantis. Countries, peoples, travels . Edited by Martin Hürlimann . Volume 7, issue 5, May 1935
  • La Loi du nord ou Telle qu'elle était en son vivant, 1936
  • Le Maître de la route.
  • L'âme allemande. 1945

Film adaptations

  • 1940: The law of the north (La loi du nord)
  • 1950: A smile in the storm (Un sourire dans la tempête)
  • 1957: Black Star in White Night (Un homme se penche sur sa passé)
  • 1995: The Lovers of Red River (Rivière Rouge)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IMDB to Constantin-Weyer . The novel was staged again for television by Yves Boisset in 1995 ( Les Amants de Rivière Rouge ), with Christophe Malavoy in the lead role.
  2. ↑ German version see below in the section "Films"
personal data
SURNAME Constantin-Weyer, Maurice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Constantin, Maurice (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Bourbonne-les-Bains
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1964
Place of death Vichy