 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (October 2012)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Jean Cassou (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃kasu] ; 9 July 1897 – 15 January 1986) was a French writer, art critic, poet, member of the French Resistance during World War II and the first Director of the Musée national d'Art moderne in Paris.
Jean Cassou was born at Bilbao, (Spain). His father was French (with a Mexican mother) and his mother Milagros Ibañez Pacheco was from Andalucia (Spain).
His father, who had the prestigious degree Ingénieur des Arts et Manufactures, died when Jean was only sixteen. His mother gave Jean and his sister basic Spanish culture, and he learnt French and Spanish classics side by side at school. Jean did secondary studies at the Lycée Charlemagne while providing for the needs of his family, then began study for the Licence d'espagnol (Spanish) degree at the Faculty of Letters in Paris. This he followed in 1917 and 1918 by getting a master's degree at the Bayonne Lycée and, though interrupted many times, was not mobilised in World War I. He was Secretary to Pierre Louÿs, writing from 1921 to 1929 his monthly chronicle "Spanish Letters" in the cultural magazine Le Mercure de France (of which he was editor). He became in 1923 the writer for the Ministry of State Education and in 1926 published his first novel.
In 1932 Jean Cassou became an inspector of historic monuments. In 1934 he became a member of the Vigilance Committee of anti-fascist intellectuals and director from 1936 of the review Europe . In 1936 he was a member of the cabinet of Jean Zay, Minister of State Education and of the Art-schools of the Popular Front. He was then in favour of the Spanish Republic and socialism, and approached the communist party – but broke with then in 1939 at the time of the Germano-Soviet pact. On the approach of the German army, he went to the castle at Compiègne and devoted himself to the safeguard of the national heritage.
Relieved of his post in September 1940, after only several weeks, as first Chief Conservator of the Museum of Modern Art by the Vichy régime, he joined the Resistance in September 1940, writing its first leaflets. Among his friends who shared his views were Claude Aveline and Agnès Humbert and they founded the clandestine group the Groupe du musée de l'Homme, together with Boris Vildé, Anatole Lewitsky and Paul Rivet. With Claude Aveline, Agnès Humbert, Simone Martin-Chauffier and Marcel Abraham, he drafted the group's periodical called Résistance (six numbers between December 1940 and March 1941). When many members of the group were arrested, he escaped the Gestapo and took refuge at Toulouse. He was an agent of the "Bertaux group" in August 1941, and was arrested in December for his activities at the Musée de l'Homme. He was sentenced to a year in a Vichy prison, where he composed poems in his head, there being no possibility of writing anything down: his Thirty-three sonnets composed in secret were published in 1944 under the pseudonym of Jean Noir.
Freed after a year in prison, he was sent by the ST to an internment camp at Saint-Sulpice (Tarn). After a month, following a plea from the Resistance to the director of ST, he was released in June 1943 and continued his active work for the Resistance using the pseudonyms "Alain" and Fournier". He became inspector of the southern zone. The Provisional Government of the French Republic in Algeria named him in June 1944 as Commissioner of the Republic for the Toulouse Region. In August, at the time of the liberation of the town, his car met an armed German patrol: two of his companions were killed and he was left for dead. He spent three weeks in a coma. General Charles de Gaulle came to his bedside to present him with the Croix de la Libération. Though his job was replaced he kept the title, but resigned after convalescing for a year.
In 1945 Jean Cassou regained his post as Director of the National Museum of Modern Art, a post he kept until 1965. In 1971 he received the Grand prix national des Lettres and in 1983 the grand Prix de la Société des Gens de Lettres for the whole of his work. He died on 15 January 1986 and is buried in the Cimetière de Thiais, near Paris. He was a militant activist for the Peace Movement and brother-in-law of the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch. A bronze bust by Madeleine de Tézenas is in the Place de la Résistance in Toulouse.
Composer Henri Dutilleux set four of his poems to music between 1944 and 1956 (La Geôle, Il n'y avait que des troncs déchirés, J'ai rêvé que je vous portais entre mes bras, Eloignez-vous).
Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu, known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award.
Pierre-Jean Rémy is the pen-name of Jean-Pierre Angremy who was a French diplomat, novelist, and essayist. He was elected to the Académie française on 16 June 1988, and won the 1986 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for his novel Une ville immortelle.
André Salmon was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal.
François Bon is a French writer and translator.
Clément Rosset was a French philosopher and writer. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, and the author of books on 20th-century philosophy and postmodern philosophy.
Patrick Besson is a French writer and journalist.
Jules Roy was a French writer. "Prolific and polemical" Roy, born an Algerian pied noir and sent to a Roman Catholic seminary, used his experiences in the French colony and during his service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War as inspiration for a number of his works. He began writing in 1946, while still serving in the military, and continued to publish fiction and historical works after his resignation in 1953 in protest of the First Indochina War. He was an outspoken critic of French colonialism and the Algerian War of Independence and later civil war, as well as a strongly religious man.
Armand Robin was a Breton poet, translator, and journalist.
Georges-Emmanuel Clancier was a French poet, novelist, and journalist. He won the Prix Goncourt (poetry), the Grand Prize of the Académie française, and the grand prize of the Société des gens de lettres.
The Prix Méditerranée is a French literary award. It was created in 1984 in Perpignan by the Mediterranean Centre of Literature (CML) to promote cultural interaction among the numerous countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Two awards are handed out every year, the Prix Méditerranée itself and the Prix Méditerranée Étranger. The latter is given to a writer from the Mediterranean basin whose original work has been translated into French.
Gérard de Cortanze is a French writer, essayist, translator and literary critic. He won the Prix Renaudot in 2002 for his historical novel Assam. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 2009.
The Grand prix des lectrices de Elle is a French literary prize awarded by readers of Elle magazine.
The Roger Nimier Prize is a French literature award. It is supposed to go to "a young author whose spirit is in line with the literary works of Roger Nimier". Nimier (1925–1962) was a novelist and a leading member of the Hussards movement. The prize was established in 1963 at the initiative of André Parinaud and Denis Huisman and is handed out annually during the second half of May. It comes with a sum of 5000 euro.
Brasserie Lipp is a brasserie located at 151 Boulevard Saint-Germain in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It sponsors an annual literary prize, the Prix Cazes, named for a previous owner.
Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou is a song cycle for baritone and piano written by the French composer Henri Dutilleux in 1954. He later transcribed or allowed transcriptions of the work for various ensembles.
Rama Ayalon is an Israeli French-to-Hebrew translator. She has translated more than 100 books of classic and contemporary literature in the fields of prose, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Her translations include important philosophical works such as Pensées by Blaise Pascal and Totalité et infini by Emmanuel Lévinas. Among the prose authors she has translated are Michel Houellebecq, Georges Simenon, Marguerite Duras, Guy de Maupassant, Romain Gary, Milan Kundera, Delphine de Vigan, and Leïla Slimani.
The Prix France Télévisions are annual literary awards in France. Since 1995, the national television broadcaster France Télévisions has awarded two prizes, for a novel and an essay. The judging panel consists of 15 television viewers chosen from across France, on the basis of their cover letters.
The grand prix de littérature de la SGDL is a French literary prize created by the Société des gens de lettres in 1947 in order to reward an author for the whole of his work, and which is given during the spring session of the society.
Alexandre Blokh, called Jean Blot, was a French writer, translator, and senior civil servant of Russian origin.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
