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Julien Gracq | |
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 Gracq in 1951 | |
| Born | Louis Poirier (1910-07-27)27 July 1910 Saint-Florent-le-Vieil,Maine-et-Loire, France |
| Died | 22 December 2007(2007-12-22) (aged 97) Angers, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, critic, playwright, poet |
| Education | University of Paris |
| Period | 1938–2002 |
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Julien Gracq (French:[gʁak]; bornLouis Poirier; 27 July 1910 – 22 December 2007) was a French writer.[1] He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were noted for their dreamlike abstraction, elegant style and refined vocabulary. He was close to thesurrealist movement, in particular its leaderAndré Breton.[1]
Gracq first studied in Paris at theLycée Henri IV, where he earned hisbaccalauréat. He then entered theÉcole Normale Supérieure in 1930, later studying at theÉcole libre des sciences politiques (Sciences Po.), both schools of theUniversity of Paris at the time.
In 1932, he readAndré Breton'sNadja, 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.
In 1936, he joined theFrench Communist Party but quit the party in 1939 after theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed.[2]
During the Second World War, he was a prisoner of war in Silesia with other officers of the French Army. One of the friendships he formed there was with author and literary critic Armand Hoog, who later described Gracq as a passionate individualist and ferociously anti-Vichy.[3]
In 1950, he published a fierce attack on contemporary literary culture and literary prizes in the reviewEmpédocle titledLa Littérature à l'estomac. When he won thePrix Goncourt forThe Opposing Shore (Le Rivage des Syrtes) the following year, he remained consistent with his criticism and refused the prize.[1]
Gracq taught history and geography in secondary school (high school) until he retired in 1970.
In 1979, he wrote the foreword to a re-edition of theJournal de l'analogiste (1954) bySuzanne Lilar, a work he called a "sumptuous initiation to poetry" ("une initiation somptueuse à la poésie").
In 1989, Gracq's work was published by theBibliothèque de la Pléiade. He remained distant from major literary events and faithful to his first publisher,José Corti.
Gracq lived a quiet life in his native town of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, on the banks of the riverLoire. On 22 December 2007, a couple of days after suffering a dizzy spell, he died at the age of 97 in a hospital inAngers.
Gracq left notebooks with about 3500 pages of unpublished material. He expressed a wish that none of it should be published until at least 20 years after his death.[4] His novelThe Sunset Lands, which he worked on from 1953 to 1956 but abandoned, was published in 2014.[5]
The Opposing Shore (Le Rivage des Syrtes, 1951) is Julien Gracq's most famous novel.
A novel of waiting, it is set in an old fortress close to a sea which defines the ancestral border between the stagnant principality of Orsenna and the territory of its archenemy, the mysterious Farghestan. Its lonely characters are caught in a no man's land, waiting for something to happen and wondering whether something should be done to bring about change, particularly when change may mean the death of civilisations.
Recipients of theAmerica Award in Literature | |
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