Hervé Bazin (; 17 April 191117 February 1996) was a French writer, whose best-known novels covered semi-autobiographical topics of teenage rebellion and dysfunctional families.

Biography

Bazin, born Jean-Pierre Hervé-Bazin in

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

Maine-et-Loire Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indr ...

, France came from a high-bourgeois Catholic family. He was the great-nephew of the writer René Bazin. His father was a magistrate who with his wife had been sent to China to take up a diplomatic post. Hervé and his brother were brought up in the ancestral home, the chateau of Le Patys, by their grandmother. When she died, his mother returned from

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

with reluctance. She sent Bazin to a variety of clerical establishments and then to the military academy, the Prytanée de la Fleche, from which he was expelled as incompetent. He opposed his authoritarian mother, ran away several times during his teens, and refused Catholic teachings. At the age of 20 he broke up with his family. Leaving his home for Paris, he took a degree in literature at the Sorbonne. During fifteen years of writing poetry with little success, Bazin worked in many small jobs. Notable work of this period included founding a poetic review, ''la Coquille'' (''The Shell'', only eight volumes), named after the medieval poet-beggars, the ''coquillards'' of Villon's days, and "À la poursuite d'Iris" in 1948. He won the 1947 Prix Apollinaire for ''Jour'', his first book of poetry. Following the advice of

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, m ...

, he left poetry to focus on prose. Childhood conflicts with his mother inspired the novel '' Viper in the Fist'' in 1948. The novel portrays the hatred between a mother nicknamed Folcoche (from the French "folle" (crazy) and "cochonne" (pig) and her children, including the narrator Jean Rezeau, called "Brasse-bouillon". The book was immensely successful in postwar France, and was followed by ''La Mort du Petit Cheval'' and ''Le Cri de la Chouette'' to create a trilogy. In other works, Bazin returned to the theme of the family. In addition to novels, he also wrote short stories and essays. Bazin became a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1958, replacing Francis Carco. He became its president in 1973, and was replaced, after his death, by Jorge Semprún, while the presidency was given to François Nourissier. Politically, Bazin belonged to the '' Mouvement de la Paix'', in relation with the communist party of which he was a sympathizer. He obtained the Lenin Peace Prize in 1979. This made Roger Peyrefitte say jokingly: "Hervé Bazin had two prizes which fitted each other: the Lenin Peace Prize and the black humour prize." In 1995, he gave his manuscripts and letters to the record office of the town of Nancy, which already owned the archives of the Goncourt brothers, who originated from the town. Bazin died in

. Due to a juridical imbroglio, the six children of his first marriages obtained, against the will of his last spouse and last son, the auction of the archive at the Hôtel Drouot on 29 October 2004. With help from the district's authorities, the university library of Angers managed to preempt almost the whole of the estate, meaning 22 manuscripts and about 9000 letters which were made available to the research community, as the author wished.

Orthography and punctuation

In his 1966 essay ''Plumons l’Oiseau'' ("Let's pluck the bird"): Bazin proposed a nearly phonemic orthography for the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

called "l’ortografiǝ lojikǝ"(logical orthography). :

Punctuation marks

He also proposed six new "points d’intonation" (

punctuation mark Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisti ...

s): Example:

Published works

* '' Jour'', poems, 1947 * ''A la poursuite d'Iris'', poems, 1948 * '' Vipère au poing'' ('' Viper in the Fist''), autobiographical novel, 1948 * '' La Tête contre les murs'', novel, publié en 1949 * '' La Mort du petit cheval'', autobiographical novel, 1950 Sequel to "Vipère au poing" * ''Le bureau des mariages'', short stories, 1951 * '' Lève-toi et marche'', novel, 1952 * '' Humeurs'', poems, 1953 * ''Contre vents et marées'', 1953 * ''L'Huile sur le feu'', novel, 1954 * ''Qui j'ose aimer'', novel, 1956 * ''La fin des asiles'', essay, 1959 * '' Au nom du fils'', novel, 1960 * '' Chapeau bas'', short stories, 1963 : ''Chapeau bas, Bouc émissaire, La hotte, M. le conseiller du coeur, Souvenirs d'un amnésique, Mansarde à louer, La Clope'' * ''Plumons l'oiseau'', essay, 1966 * '' Le Matrimoine'', novel, 1967 * ''Les bienheureux de La Désolation'', account, 1970 The story of the total population evacuation of the island of

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcano, volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascensi ...

(also known as "La Désolation") following the 1961 volcanic eruption, their refusal of the consumerist society of England, where they had been resettled, and their iron will to come back to their island and repopulate one of the hardest places to live in the world, and live according to their own ideal. Published in English as ''Tristan: A Novel''. * '' Le Cri de la chouette'', autobiographical novel, 1972A sequel to "Vipère au poing" and "La mort du petit cheval" * ''Madame Ex'', novel, 1975 * ''Traits'', 1976 * ''Ce que je crois'', 1977 * ''Un feu dévore un autre feu'', 1978 * ''L'Église verte'', novel, 1981 * ''Qui est le prince?'', 1981 * ''Abécédaire'', 1984 * ''Le Démon de minuit'', 1988 * '' L'École des pères'', novel, 1991 * ''Le grand méchant doux'', 1992 * ''Le Neuvième jour'', 1994

Notes

References

Sources

* Jean-Louis de Rambures, "Comment travaillent les écrivains", Paris 1978 (interview with Hervé Bazin, in French)

External links

*
Hervé Bazin
at the library of the University of Angers {{DEFAULTSORT:Bazin, Herve 1911 births 1996 deaths People from Angers University of Paris alumni 20th-century French poets 20th-century French male writers Recipients of the Lenin Peace Prize 20th-century French novelists French male essayists French male poets French male novelists French male short story writers French short story writers Prix Guillaume Apollinaire winners 20th-century French essayists