Abel Bonnard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abel Bonnard (December 19, 1883 – May 31, 1968) was a French poet, novelist and politician. Born in Poitiers, his early education was in Marseilles with secondary studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. A student of literature, he was a graduate of the École du Louvre and a member of the École française de Rome.

Politically, a follower of Charles Maurras, his views evolved towards fascism in the 1930s. Bonnard was one of the ministers of National Education under the Vichy regime (1942-44). He was nicknamed by Pétain "la Gestapette" by French nationalists, a portmanteau of Gestapo and tapette, the latter French slang for a homosexual.

A member of the Académie française, Bonnard was one of four members expelled from the institution after World War II for collaboration with Germany. He was condemned in absentia to death during the épuration légale period for his wartime activities. However, Franco granted him political asylum in Spain. In 1960, he returned to France to face retrial for his crimes. He received a symbolic sentence of 10 years banishment to be counted from 1945, but dissatisfied with the verdict of guilty, he chose to return to Spain where he lived out the remainder of his life.

[edit] Bibliography

• 1906 Les Familiers
• 1908 Les Histoires
• 1908 Les Royautés
• 1913 La Vie et l’Amour
• 1914 Le Palais Palmacamini
• 1918 La France et ses morts
• 1924 Notes de voyage : En Chine (1920-1921), 2 vol.
• 1926 Éloge de l’ignorance
• 1926 La vie amoureuse d’Henri Beyle
• 1927 L’Enfance
• 1928 L’Amitié
• 1928 L’Argent
• 1929 Saint François d’Assise
• 1931 Rome
• 1936 Le drame du présent : Les Modérés
• 1937 Savoir aimer
• 1939 L’Amour et l’Amitié
• 1941 Pensées dans l’action
• 1992 Ce monde et moi (selection of aphorisms, posthumous)

Preceded by Charles Le Goffic

Seat 12 Académie française 1932-1945

Succeeded by Jules Romains

[edit] External links

• (French) L'Académie française