Writer, publisher, war hero, French government minister, André Malraux was renowned as a Renaissance man of the twentieth century. Now, Olivier Todd–author of the acclaimed biography Albert Camus–gives us this life, in which fact competes dramatically with his subject’s previously little-known mythomania. We see the adventurous young Malraux move from 1920s literary Paris to colonial Cambodia, Cochin China, and Spain in its civil war. Todd charts the thrilling exploits that would inspire such novels as Man’s Fate, but, just as fascinating, he also traces Malraux’s lifelong pattern of lies: claiming friendship with Mao, he was called to tutor Nixon, despite having met the Great Helmsman only once; a minor injury becomes in recollections a near-mortal battlefield wound; stories of heroism in the French Resistance omit to mention that Malraux joined up just a few weeks before the Allied landings. With meticulous research, Todd separates myth from reality to throw light on a brilliant con man who would become a national hero, but he also lets us see Malraux’s genuine achievements as both writer and man of action. His real life and the one he embroidered come together in this superb biography to reveal how Malraux, the protean genius, became his own greatest character.

Malraux: A Life

Biographies & Memoirs

TODD, Olivier

Arts & Literature

KNOPF

In this vibrant, engaging biography of Albert Camus, the internationally acclaimed author of The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall, French writer and journalist Olivier Todd has richly tapped resources never before available-personal correspondence, notebooks, public records, as well as exclusive interviews with Camus's family, friends, fellow workers, mentors, and lovers. What emerges is the study of a man caught in conflicts between family loyalties and his own passionate nature, between the call to political action and devotion to his art, between his support of the native Algerians and his identification with the forgotten poor whites. Exploring Camus's impoverished childhood in the Algerian city of Belcourt, his underground activities during the Occupation in Paris, the intrigues of the French literati who embraced him after the publication of his first novel, L'Etranger, Todd uncovers the solitary private man behind the mask of his celebrity. He shows us a writer isolated by his own success, crippled by the charms of women he could not resist, debilitated by the tuberculosis that did not kill him. The auto accident that did adds only to the ironies in the life of this international giant of twentieth-century literature.

Albert Camus: A Life

Da Capo

Albert Camus: Une vie

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Фоліо

Andre Malraux

Genre Fiction

Camus fut algérien et algérois, journaliste, essayiste, romancier, dramaturge, metteur en scène, acteur... Avec cette biographie, sa personnalité apparaît dans toute sa complexité, grâce à de nombreux inédits dont sa correspondance. Camus était charmeur et ombrageux, sincère et théâtral, plein de doutes et arrogant. Il voulait être aimé et y parvint souvent. Il cherchait à être compris et n'y parvint pas toujours. Il parla trop de bonheur pour être heureux et serein. Faut-il pour autant l'imaginer malheureux comme Sisyphe ? Dans sa vie privée et ses engagements publics, un Camus inattendu - souvent inconnu - surgit à travers ses prises de position politiques ou artistiques, ses amitiés et ses amours. Camus reste inclassable, solitaire et solidaire, un frère ennemi de Sartre... Communiste puis anticommuniste, il connaissait le prix humain des idéologies. Il ne voulait être ni victime ni bourreau. Pour lui, la souffrance n'avait pas de frontière mais les tyrans avaient toujours la carte d'un parti. Déchiré par la guerre d'Algérie, Camus vécut aussi les amères victoires et les fécondes défaites de la justice et de la violence. Plus de trente-cinq ans après sa mort, celui qui prétendait ne pas être le Clamence de La Chute - ce juge pénitent qui se vouait à l'enfer ou au purgatoire - redevient un "dangereux classique".

Gallimard]

Cruel avril: 1975, la chute de Saigon (French Edition)

History

Asia

R. Laffont

Jacques Brel, une vie - NE

ROBERT LAFFONT

Jacques Brel, une vie

Albert Camus. Una vida (Spanish Edition)

Tusquets Editores S.A.

Fue realmente desgraciada su infancia, que el decia odiar? Llego a ser un revolucionario? En que sentido? Entro en la Resistencia tan temprano como afirmaba? Lo hizo movido por el patriotismo o por el interes? Fue un ministro eficaz o un sonador? A partir de testimonios y documentos a menudo ineditos, y material de archivos publicos y privados hasta ahora sin explorar, Todd distingue y separa las experiencias vividas de las imaginadas, desvelando la personalidad de un hombre cuya pasion indudable era la escritura pero que dudaba de si mismo, un personaje sin malicia ni mezquindad que no obstante fue victima de su mitomania.

André Malraux. Una vida (Spanish Edition)

Reference

English as a Second Language

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