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Valery Larbaud (29 August 1881 – 2 February 1957) was a French writer and poet.

Life

He was born in

Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...

, the only child of a pharmacist. His father died when he was 8, and he was brought up by his mother and aunt. His father had been owner of the '' Vichy Saint-Yorre'' mineral water springs, and the family fortune assured him an easy life. He travelled Europe in style. On luxury liners and the Orient Express he carried off the

dandy A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle des ...

role, with spa visits to nurse fragile health. ''Poèmes par un riche amateur'', published in 1908, received

Octave Mirbeau Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the ...

's vote for ''

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 ...

''. Three years later, his novel '' Fermina Márquez'', inspired by his days as a boarder at Sainte-Barbe-des-Champs at Fontenay-aux-Roses, had some ''prix Goncourt'' votes in 1911 but did not win; nonetheless, it is still considered to be a minor classic of French literature and one of Larbaud's best known works. He spoke six languages including English, Italian and Spanish. In France he helped translate and popularise

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

, Samuel Butler, and

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

, whose '' Ulysses'' was translated by Auguste Morel (1924–1929) under Larbaud's supervision. At home in Vichy, he saw as friends Charles-Louis Philippe,

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...

, Léon-Paul Fargue and Jean Aubry, his future biographer. An attack of hemiplegia and

aphasia Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in t ...

in 1935 left him paralysed. Having spent his fortune, he had to sell his property and 15,000 book library. Despite his illness, he continued to receive many honorary titles, and in 1952 he was awarded the Grand prix national des Lettres. The '' prix Valery Larbaud'' was created in 1967 by ''L'Association Internationale des Amis de Valery Larbaud'', a group founded to promote the author's work. Past winners of this yearly award include J.M.G. Le Clézio,

Jacques Réda Jacques Réda (born 24 January 1929 in Lunéville) is a French poet, jazz critic, and ''flâneur''. He was awarded the Prix Valery Larbaud in 1983, and was chief editor of the ''Nouvelle Revue Française'' from 1987 to 1996. Works *''Amen'' (196 ...

, Emmanuel Carrère, and Jean Rolin.

Works

* ''Poèmes par un riche amateur'' (1908) as A.O. Barnabooth. * '' Fermina Márquez'' (1911) * ''A.O. Barnabooth'' (1913) * ''Enfantines'' (1918) * ''Beauté, mon beau souci'' (1920) * ''Amants, heureux amants'' (1923) * ''Mon plus secret conseil...'' (1923) * ''Ce Vice impuni, la lecture : domaine anglais'' (1925) * ''Jaune bleu blanc'' (1927) * ''Aux couleurs de Rome'' (1938) * ''Ce Vice impuni, la lecture : domaine français'' (1941) * ''Sous l'invocation de saint Jérôme'' (1946) * ''Chez Chesterton'' * ''Ode à une blanchisseuse''

References

* MOUSLI, Béatrice, "Valery Larbaud", coll. Grandes Biographies, Paris, Pub. Flammarion, 1998, Grand Prix de la Biographie de l’Académie Française 1998. * MOUSLI, Béatrice, "Voyager avec Valery Larbaud", Paris, Pub. La Quinzaine/Louis Vuitton, 2003. * France, Peter (Ed.) (1995). ''The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press. .

External links

* * * * * Works by Valery Larbaud (public domain in Canada) * Inventory and analysis of Valery Larbaud's non-novelistic writing
Université McGill: le roman selon les romanciers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Larbaud, Valery 1881 births 1957 deaths People from Vichy Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni French male poets 20th-century French poets 20th-century French male writers