André Stil

André Stil
Born 1 April 1921
Hergnies, France
Died 3 September 2004 (aged 83)
Camélas, France
Occupation Author
Nationality French
Period 1949–1996
Genre Fiction
Literary movement Communist

André Stil (April 1, 1921 – September 3, 2004) was a French novelist, short story writer, occasional poet, and political activist. A lifelong militant, he became a member of the French Communist Party in 1940, and remained loyal to the party.

Life

Born in Hergnies, Nord, a small town in the coal-mining region of northern France, Stil was educated at the University of Lille, earning a degree in philosophy. He taught at the University from 1941 to 1944. Having joined the Communist Party in 1940, he then held a series of increasingly senior editorial positions with communist newspapers. He was secretary-general of Liberté until 1949, then editor-in-chief of Ce Soir. He served as editor of the party's main newspaper, L'Humanité, until 1956, continuing to contribute thereafter, and from 1950 to 1970 he was a member of the French Communist Party's central committee.

Beginning in 1949, he published some fifty volumes, comprising mainly socialist realist novels, but also short stories and a volume of verse. Supported by Louis Aragon, he won the Stalin Prize for his trilogy The First Clash (1951–1953). He won the Grand Prix du Roman Populaire, was awarded the Legion d'Honneur, and in 1977 was elected one of the ten members of the Academie Goncourt.[1]

Works

His first novel, The Word `Coalminer', Comrade (1949) launched his enduring themes of working class life and militant communist politics. This was followed by a short story collection, The Seine has Taken to the Sea (1950) and his prize-winning trilogy The First Clash (1951–1953). This tells the story of the resistance of dock workers to the arrival of an American arms ship and contains detailed accounts of domestic working-class life. Anti-Americanism and the French-Algerian problem were important themes in his work through the 1950s.[2] He returned to his coal-mining background repeatedly in his fiction; one of his last novels was Coal Dust on the Snow (1996). In addition to his prolific fiction, he wrote a critical work, Towards Socialist Realism, and an autobiography, A Life Spent Writing. He also wrote scripts for television.[1]

List of works

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 James Kirkup, "André Stil: Obituary" The Independent September 9, 2004, recovered May 11, 2009
  2. ↑ John Ernest Flower, Literature and the Left in France Routledge, 1985, 152-153