François Mauriac

France's great Catholic author and Nobel Prize winner unfolds his thoughts on a variety of topics in a series of letters written to such men as Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Pierre Schaeffer and Jacques Rivi re. Readers of "Proust's Way," "Men I Hold Great" and "The Stumbling Block" will find intense interest in Mauriac's reflections on the death of Georges Bernanos, the Claudel-Gide correspondence and the Routier youth movement.

The thinking and suffering of the author of Remembrance of Things Past are intimately exposed in these letters to Mauriac. Mauriac, Fran ois 1885-1970, French writer. Mauriac achieved success in 1922 and 1923 with Le Baiser au l preux and Genitrix (tr. of both in The Family, 1930). Generally set in or near his native Bordeaux, his novels are imbued with his profound, though nonconformist, Roman Catholicism. His characters exist in a tortured universe; nature is evil and man eternally prone to sin. His major novels are The Desert of Love (1925, tr. 1929), Th r se (1927, tr. 1928), and Vipers' Tangle (1932, tr. 1933). Other works include The Frontenacs (1933, tr. 1961) and Woman of the Pharisees (1941, tr. 1946); a life of Racine (1928) and of Jesus (1936, tr. 1937); and plays, notably Asmod e (1938, tr. 1939). Also a distinguished essayist, Mauriac became a columnist for Figaro after World War II. Collections of his articles and essays include Journal, 1932-39 (1947, partial tr. Second Thoughts, 1961), Proust's Way (1949, tr. 1950), and Cain, Where Is Your Brother? (tr. 1962). Mauriac received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.