Charles Plisnier (13 December 1896,

Ghlin Ghlin ( wa, Glin-dlé-Mont) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Mons, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. People born in Ghlin * Charles Plisnier (1896–1952), writer winner of the Prix Goncourt The Pr ...

– 17 July 1952,

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

) was a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

writer from

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...

Biography

He was a

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

in his youth and briefly belonged to the

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

movement in the late 1920s. He disavowed communism, and became a Roman Catholic, remaining nevertheless a Marxist. He turned to literature, writing family sagas against bourgeois society. ''Mariages'' (1936; "Nothing to Chance") deals with the limitations of social conventions; the five-volume Meurtres (1939–41; "Murders") centres on an idealistic tragic hero, Noël Annequin, in his fight against hypocrisy.Charles Plisnier
/ref> In 1937, he won the

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...

for ''

Faux passeports ''Faux passeports'' subtitled 'ou les mémoires d'un agitateur' in its original version, is a Belgian novel by Charles Plisnier. It was first published by Corrêa in 1937. It received the prestigious Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt (french: Le p ...

'', short stories denouncing Stalinism, in the same spirit as

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...

. He was the first foreigner to receive Prix Goncourt. He was also a Walloon movement activist and at the end of the

Walloon National Congress Walloon may refer to: * Walloons, a French-speaking population of Belgium * Walloon language * Walloon Region or Wallonia in Belgium ** Walloon Government * Walloon Lake * Walloon, Queensland See also * ''The Walloons'', a 1782 play by Richard C ...

there was a standing ovation after his speech, the assembly then singing

La Marseillaise "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du R ...

Footnotes

Belgian communists Walloon movement activists Belgian writers in French Prix Goncourt winners Roman Catholic writers 1896 births 1952 deaths {{Belgium-writer-stub