Pierre Gamarra

Pierre Gamarra (; 10 July 1919 – 20 May 2009) was a French poet, novelist and literary critic, a long-time chief editor and director of the literary magazine ''Europe''.
Gamarra is best known for his poems and novels for the youth and for narrative and poetical works deeply rooted in his native region of Midi-Pyrénées.

Life

Pierre Gamarra was born in Toulouse on 10 July 1919. From 1938 until 1940, he was a teacher in the South of France. During the German Occupation, he joined various Resistance groups in Toulouse, involved in the writing and distributing of clandestine publications. This led him to a career as a journalist, and then, more specifically both as a writer and a literary journalist.

In 1948, Pierre Gamarra received the first in Lausanne for his first novel, ''La Maison de feu''.''La Maison de feu'' means ″The fiery house″. The novel takes place in Toulouse during the 1930s. Members of the 1948 Veillon Prize jury included writers André Chamson, Vercors, Franz Hellens and Louis Guilloux. The novel is described in ''Books Abroad'' as "a beautifully written tale of humble life, which Philippe and Jammes would have liked".

From 1945 to 1951, he worked as a journalist in Toulouse. In 1951, Louis Aragon, Jean Cassou and André Chamson offered him a position in Paris as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine ''Europe''. He occupied this position until 1974, when he became director of the magazine. Under Pierre Gamarra's direction, ''Europe'' continued the project initiated in 1923 by Romain Rolland and other writers.For instance, many issues were devoted to an extensive presentation of countries whose literature is not internationally very well known. Until 2009, Pierre Gamarra also contributed to most of the magazines's issues with a book review column titled "La Machine à écrire" (The Typewriter).In French ''La Machine à écrire''; since 2009, the column is continued in ''Europe'' by Jacques Lèbre.

Most of his novels take place in his native South-West of France: he wrote a novel trilogy based on the history of Toulouse and various novels set in that town, along the Garonne or in the Pyrenees.
John L. Brown, in ''World Literature Today'', writes that Pierre Gamarra's descriptions of Toulouse, its people and its region were "masterly", "skillfully and poetically" composed "with a vibrant lyricism" and that: Pierre Gamarra is also the author of ''The Midnight Roosters'',In French ''Les Coqs de Minuit''. a novel set in Aveyron during the French Revolution. The book was adapted for the French television channel FR3 in 1973. The film, casting , was shot in the town of Najac.

In 1955, he published one of his best known novels, ''Le Maître d’école'';French for ''The Schoolmaster''. the book and its sequel ''La Femme de Simon''French for ''Simon’s wife'', Simon being Simon Sermet, the main character in both novels. (1962) received critical praise.
Reviewing his 1957 short stories collection ''Les Amours du potier'',French for ''A Potter's lovers''. Lois Marie Sutton deems that, although war affects the plots of many of "all (those) delightful thirteen stories", "it is the light-hearted plot that Gamarra maneuvers best" and that "as in his previous publications, (the author) shows himself to be a master delineator of the life of the average peasant and employee."

In 1961, Pierre Gamarra received the for ''L'Aventure du Serpent à Plumes''''L’Aventure du Serpent à Plumes'', French for ″The Adventure of the Feathered Snake″, is a novel for the youth. and in 1985, the SGDL Grand PrizeIn French, Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres pour le roman. for his novel ''Le Fleuve Palimpseste''.''Le Fleuve palimpseste'', French for ″The Palimpsest river″. The river is the Garonne.

Pierre Gamarra died in Argenteuil on 20 May 2009, leaving a substantial body of work, not yet translated into English for the most part. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' sees in him a "delightful practitioner with notable drollery and high technical skills" in the art of children's poetry and children's stories. His poems and fables are well known by French schoolchildren.

Selection of works

Literature for the youth

Stories

* ''Les Vacances de tonton 36'' (2006)
* ''Moustache et ses amis de toutes les couleurs'' (2005)
:
::New edition of ''Moustache et ses amis'' (1974)
* ''Douze tonnes de diamant'' (1978)
*''L'Aventure du Serpent à plumes'', Prize for the Youth 1961
*Berlurette trilogy:
** ''Berlurette contre Tour Eiffel'' (1961)
** ''Le Trésor de Tricoire'' (1959)
**''Le Mystère de la Berlurette'' (1957)
* ''La Rose des Karpathes'', (1955)

;
* ''The Bridge on the River Clarinette'' in ''Cricket: the magazine for children'', vol. 2 No. 11, (La Salle, Illinois) 1975, (p. 22-29) – illustrated by Marilyn Hafner, translated by Paulette Henderson
* ''Meet your author'' (''op. cit.'' pp. 30–33), Paulette Henderson

Fables collections

* ''Salut, Monsieur de La Fontaine'' (2005), Frédéric Devienne,
* ''La Mandarine et le Mandarin'' (1970)

Poetry

* ''Mon cartable et autres poèmes à réciter'' (2006)
* ''Des mots pour une maman'' (1984)
* ''Voici des maisons'' (1979)
* ''Les Mots enchantés'' (1952)

;
*'My schoolbag', in'' Berthe Mouchette Celebration'', Melbourne Alliance française (2019), p. 74-75

CD

* ''Les Aventuriers de l'alphabet'' (2002)

Adaptations

* ''Les Fariboles de Bolla'' (1981), , original Swedish text and by Gunilla Bergström,
----

Novels

* ''L'Empreinte de l'ours'' (2010), De Borée (Sayat)
* ''Les Coqs de minuit'' (new ed. including ''Rosalie Brousse'') 2009, De Borée
* ''Le Maître d'école'' (new ed. including ''La Femme de Simon'') 2008, De Borée
* ''Les Lèvres de l’été'' (1986)
* ''Le Fleuve palimpseste'' PUF (1985) ; SGDL Prize for the novel
* ''Cantilène occitane'' (1979)
* ''La Femme et le Fleuve'' (1952)
* ''L’assassin a le prix Goncourt'' (1951)
*''Les Enfants du pain noir'' (1950)
* ''La Maison de feu'' (1948), Éditions La Baconnière ( Neuchatel)/ Éditions de Minuit,
:Reedited De Borée (2014)
Editions of the book since 1948

* Toulouse trilogy:
** ''72 soleils'', 1975
** ''L'Or et le Sang'', 1970
** ''Les Mystères de Toulouse'', 1967

Short stories

*'' Les Amours du potier'', (Neuchatel), 1957
* ''Un cadavre''; ''Mange ta soupe'', Prix National de la Résistance 1944

Poetry collections

*''Mon Pays l'Occitanie'' (2009), Cahiers de la Lomagne
* ''Romances de Garonne'' (1990)
* ''Essais pour une malédiction'', Hélène Vacaresco Prize for Poetry 1943

About Pierre Gamarra

----

List of reviews of Pierre Gamarra’s books (Worldcat)
small>
**''Les Lèvres de l’été'' reviewed by John L. Brown, World Literature Today, Vol. 61, No. 2, The Diary as Art (Spring, 1987), p. 236 (University of Oklahoma)
**''La Maison de feu'' reviewed by Georgette R. Schuler, Books Abroad, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring, 1949), p. 156
----

Literary journals special issues

* ''Poésie Première'' "Tarn en Poésie 2003: Avec Pierre Gamarra"
* ''Poésie Première'' No. 29 (2004)

Interviews

* Tohoku University Faculty of Letters Bulletin, No. 27 (Year 2007) (Sendai, Japan)
* ''Vivre en Val-D’Oise'', No. 112, November–December 2008 (Argenteuil)

Homages

* Charles Dobzynski, Michel Delon, Jean Métellus, Roger Bordier, Béatrice Didier, Raymond Jean, Bernard Chambaz, Michel Besnier, Marc Petit, Claude Sicard, Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Henri Béhar, Gérard Noiret, Francis Combes, in ''Europe'' No. 966 (October 2009)
* ''Les Cahiers de la Lomagne'' (Los Quasèrns de la Lomanha), No. 15 (Year 2009), pp. 1 & 16-29
----
Two streets (one in Argenteuil, one in Montauban) and a cul-de-sac in Boulazac, the other in Bessens)— and two public libraries (one in Argenteuil,Pierre Gamarra Library in Argenteuil page.
/ref> the other in Andrest) are named after Pierre Gamarra.

Notes

See also

* ''Europe'' (magazine)

References

External resources

Encyclopædia Britannica about Pierre Gamarra
*

:;
Encyclopædia Universalis articlePierre Gamarra
in the ''Dictionary of the workers' movement''
Pierre Gamarra
on the website of

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamarra, Pierre
1919 births
2009 deaths
Writers from Toulouse
French fabulists
French children's writers
French literary critics
20th-century French dramatists and playwrights
21st-century French dramatists and playwrights
French magazine editors
French male essayists
20th-century French novelists
21st-century French novelists
20th-century French poets
21st-century French poets
21st-century French male writers
French male poets
French male novelists
French male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century French essayists
21st-century French essayists
20th-century French male writers