François Mauriac

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François Mauriac (October 11, 1885 – September 1, 1970) was a French author, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is acknowledged to be one of the greatest Roman Catholic writers of the 20th century.

[edit] Biography

He was born François Charles Mauriac in Bordeaux, France. He studied literature at the University of Bordeaux, graduating in 1905, after which he moved to Paris to prepare for postgraduate study at the École des Chartes. He was opposed the rule in Vietnam, and strongly condemned the use of torture by the French army in Algeria. He also published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of Charles de Gaulle.

In 1952, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958. Mauriac's complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1950 and 1956. He also encouraged Elie Wiesel to write about his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust.

Mauriac had a bitter public dispute with Roger Peyrefitte, who criticised the Vatican in books such as Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953). Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time (L'Express) if they did not stop carrying advertisements for Peyrefitte's books. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaption of Peyrefitte's Les Amitiés Particulières and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he revealed Mauriac's private life and called him a Tartuffe.

François Mauriac died in Paris on September 1, 1970 and was interred in the Cimetière de Vemars, Val d'Oise, France.

He was the grandfather of Anne Wiazemsky, a French filmmaker who worked with and married Jean-Luc Godard.

[edit] External links

• The Paris Review Interview

Preceded by Eugène Brieux

Seat 22, Académie française 1933-1970

Succeeded by Julien Green