Georges Bernanos

"Bernanos" redirects here. For Georges Bernanos's son, a poet and fantasy writer, see Michel Bernanos.

George Bernanos
Born	(1888-02-20)20 February 1888 Paris, France
Died	(1948-07-05)5 July 1948 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	French
Period	20th century
Genre	Novel

Georges Bernanos (French: [bɛʁnanɔs]; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. Of Roman Catholic and monarchist leanings, he was critical of bourgeois thought and was opposed to what he identified as defeatism leading to France's defeat in 1940.

Biography

Bernanos was born at Paris, into a family of craftsmen, and spent much of his childhood in the Pas de Calais region, which became a frequent setting for his novels. He served in the First World War as a soldier, where he witnessed the battles of the Somme and Verdun. He was wounded several times. After the war, he worked in insurance before writing Sous le soleil de Satan. He won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for Journal d'un curé de campagne (Diary of a Country Priest).

Despite his anti-democratic leanings and his allegiance to the Action Française (he was a member of their youth organization, the Camelots du Roi), from which he finally departed in 1932, he was able to see the danger in Fascism and Nazism (which he described as "disgusting monstrousness") before World War II broke out in Europe. He initially supported Francisco Franco and the Fascist Falange at the outset of the Spanish Civil War. But Bernanos spent part of the conflict in Majorca, observed 'a terrorized population' and became disillusioned with the Francoist cause, which he criticized in the book Diary of My Times; "My illusions on the enterprise of General Franco did not last long - two or three weeks - but while they lasted I conscientiously endeavoured to get over the disgust which some of the men and means inspired in me." Most of his important fictional works were written between 1926 and 1937.

He emigrated to South America in 1938, and stayed there until 1945, for most of the time in Barbacena, Brazil, where he tried his hand at managing a farm. His three sons returned to France to fight when World War II broke out, while he fulminated at his country's 'spiritual exhaustion' which he saw as the root of its collapse in 1940. From exile he mocked the 'ridiculous' Vichy regime and became a strong supporter of the nationalist Free French Forces led by the conservative Charles de Gaulle.

After the liberation, de Gaulle invited him to return to France, offering him a post in the government. Bernanos did return, but did not participate actively in French political life.

His writings are sharply critical of modern society and its inroads into personal liberty, both through government and through technical development. He was an isolated figure, but maintained a very high reputation among his fellow writers in France.

Bernanos died in 1948 at Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Major works

• Sous le soleil de Satan 1926 (published in English as Under the Sun of Satan, made into a film with the same name by Maurice Pialat in 1987, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes)
• L'imposture 1927
• La joie 1929 (winner of the Prix Femina)
• La grande peur des bien-pensants 1931
• Jeanne relapse et sainte 1934
• Un crime 1935
• Journal d'un curé de campagne 1936 (winner of the Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, published in English by Boriswood, London in 1937 as Diary of a Country Priest, made into a film by Robert Bresson in 1951)
• Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette 1937 (made into the 1967 film Mouchette by Robert Bresson)
• Les grands cimetières sous la lune 1938 (A Diary of My Times)
• Scandale de la vérité 1939
• Nous autres Français 1939
• Monsieur Ouine 1943
• Lettre aux anglais 1946 (originally published in Rio de Janeiro in 1942)
• La France contre les robots 1947 (originally published in Rio de Janeiro in 1946)
• Le chemin de la Croix-des-Âmes 1948
• Dialogues des carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) 1949 — screenplay and later libretto adaptation of Gertrud von Le Fort's Song at the Scaffold
• Les enfants humiliés 1949
• Un mauvais rêve 1950
• La liberté, pour quoi faire ? 1953
• Français, si vous saviez 1961 (collection of articles written between 1945–1948)
• Combat pour la vérité; Correspondance inédite 1904-1934 1961
• Combat pour la liberté; Correspondance inédite 1934-1948 1961
• La vocation spirituelle de la France 1975 (collection of articles assembled by J.-L. Bernanos)
• Les prédestinés 1983 (includes "Sainte Dominique" 1926, "Jeanne relapse et sainte," and "Frère Martin" 1943)
• Lettres retrouvées. Correspondance inédite 1904-1948 1983

See also

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes Under the Sun of Satan

External links

• Template:Worldcat id
• English language biography
• Works by Georges Bernanos (public domain in Canada)