20th-century French male writers

Maximilien_Vox

Maximilien Vox (real name: Samuel William Théodore Monod) was a French writer, cartoonist, illustrator, publisher, journalist, critic art theorist and historian of the French letter and typography.He was born on 16 December 1894 in Condé-sur-Noireau in Calvados, where his father was a minister, and educated at the Corneille school in Rouen.
In 1914 he published his humorous cartoons in L'Humanité, Floréal and La Guerre Sociale and became editor of Le Mot, the review produced by Paul Iribe. Most of his cartoons were signed Sam Monod or Esmono. Monod adopted a number of aliases before settling on Maximilien Vox. After getting married he went to Paris to learn typography, and in 1926 was awarded the Prix Blumenthal, worth 20,000 Francs, for a series of 24 book covers.
During the Second World War he worked as a department head for the Ministry of Information, whilst at the same time continuing his editorial activities. In 1942 he founded The Union Bibliophile de France, which published artworks.
After the war he concentrated on typography and created in 1949 the professional magazine Characters, which he edited until 1964. He created the VOX-ATypI classification of type characters.In 1952 he moved to Lurs to live in a house he called Monodière and founded Rencontres internationales de Lure. He died there on 18 December 1974 and was buried in Lurs. He had married Eliane Poulain in 1917 and had five sons.

Vladimir_Solomonovich_Pozner

Vladimir Solomonovich Pozner (Russian: Влади́мир Соломо́нович По́знер; 5 January 1905 in Paris – 19 February 1992 in Paris) was a French writer and translator of Russian-Jewish descent. His family fled the pogroms to take up residence in France. Pozner expanded on his inherited cultural socialism to associate both in writing and politics with anti-fascist and communist groups in the inter-war period. His writing was important because he made friends with internationally renowned exponents of hardline communism, while rejecting Soviet oppression.

Claude_Paillat

Claude Paillat (11 January 1924 in Paris, France – 19 January 2001 in Paris) was a French historian, journalist and writer.
In 1946 Claude Paillat, started a career as a journalist and in 1949 joins the weekly Paris-Match, who sent him to Indochina and to Korea. For several years he followed the political events in Morocco and Algeria. In 1961, he published his first book: Le Dossier Secret de l'Algérie, 1958-1961. This book marked a turning point in writing French contemporary history, it brought investigative journalism, personal accounts from some of the main actors, oral testimony that broke the veil of state secrets.
In 1972, he establishes his series of secret files on contemporary France, Dossiers Secrets de la France Contemporaine. Based on memories and documents, most published for the very first time, rare photographs, often taken from family archives, the Dossiers Secrets take us through the events of the end of World War I and its disastrous Treaty of Versailles until the end of the Second World War.
The Dossiers Secrets offer the most original perspective on our knowledge of France in the 20th century, not only in Paris, but also from the main economic regions such as Lille, Nantes, Lyon, Bordeaux and Marseille.
Through Claude Paillat's work many key figures have been able to relate their stories, events that may have otherwise never been committed to paper.
Paillat was a journalist who became a best-selling historian. His most significant work is his eight-volume Dossiers secrets de la France contemporaine, a series that covers the span of French history from the conclusion of the First World War to the end of the Second. He also published a two-volume study of the Algerian War; a monograph on the French defeat in Indochina, as well as one on the last turbulent year of Charles de Gaulle's presidency; and a two part history of the Catholic Church in France.
Paillat's books enjoyed popular success while at the same time being based on exhaustive research. He not only made use of various French archives, he also relied on the extensive contacts he had made across French society, including members of the military, leading industrialists, and politicians. These contacts allowed Paillat to consult, and in some cases acquire, personal collections of correspondence and other documents, many of which formed the basis of the detailed descriptions of events and personalities in his books. His exclusive access to such documents also give Paillat's books - most of which contain the word "secret" in the title - the aspect of revealing confidential or privileged information. Paillat referred to his research methods as yielding a "tapestry" woven from various sources.
The Research Materials are arranged according to Paillat's original French subject headings, with additional identification provided at the folder level. The materials include copies of many official documents, private correspondence, as well as clippings and academic studies. There are numerous military records - intelligence reports, campaign journals and correspondence - relating to the French experience in World War II. There are also many documents generated by the French national police (Gendarmerie Nationale) during the Vichy period. Additionally, there are copies of reports on France in the 1930s originating from the United States embassy in Paris, as well as other American documents concerning France and North Africa in World War II.
The Paillat papers contain substantial materials emanating from the French colonial administrations in Indochina and North Africa. The Indochina materials span the period from the 1920s to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, and include some documents describing the increasing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s. There are extensive materials in the collection pertaining to the Algerian War, including many documents relating both to the Algerian nationalist movement and the military rebellion by rightwing French officers against de Gaulle. There are also many police and intelligence reports from Algeria in the 1920s and 1930s.
The research materials are particularly rich in the local and regional history of France. Paillat was interested in documenting the family histories of the French economic elite ( patronat) and conducted many interviews with members of this social class. The collection has numerous tape recordings and transcripts of these interviews. There is extensive documentation of the interwar years in France, on domestic politics and little studied movements such as Bourgeoisie Chrétienne, Redressement Français, and X-Crise. There are also materials relating to various social reform initiatives in France, including documents acquired by Paillat from the personal collections of Aymé Bernard and Achille Liénart.
The Paillat papers contain press accounts and leaflets pertaining to the protest movement of French students and workers in May–June 1968. There are also significant materials on the years following de Gaulle's resignation as president, including the Mitterrand era. These largely relate to French political parties, election campaigns, and a number of public scandals involving allegations of corruption and bribery.
The Correspondence series contains a large general file that is arranged chronologically. This consists largely of letters received by Paillat from the readers of his books, as well as a considerable number of letters from the contacts who provided him information and documents in aid of his research.
The Writings series of the papers contain the drafts of many of Paillat's books, as well as his correspondence with his publishers, readers, and those sources who had provided him with information and documents for the writing of his books. In this series, there are also numerous articles written by Paillat during his career as a journalist for the newspaper, Le Canard enchaîné. The articles focus on French politics as well reporting on business trends among French media companies.
Claude Paillat's archives have been acquired by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University in California. The archives contain many interviews and papers relating to French political and economic history in the 20th century. Access to the archives can be made through the Hoover Institute and a register of the archives are being made at Paillat Archives.
Acquired in 2008, the Claude Paillat papers in the Hoover Institution Archives represent a substantial documentary resource on modern French history. At present, they are the single largest collection relating to France in the holdings of the archives. The large bulk of the papers consists of the research materials used by Paillat in the preparation of his books on France during the period between the end of World War I and the aftermath of World War II. There are additional materials relating to the wars in Indochina and Algeria; to the local and regional history of 20th century France; to the presidencies of Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and François Mitterrand; and to French economic history.
The collection includes 435 manuscript boxes, 14 card file boxes, 4 oversize boxes a total of 183.7 linear feet.

Christian_Millau

Christian Dubois-Millot, pen name Christian Millau (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ mijo], 30 December 1928 – 5 August 2017), was a French food critic and author.
Born in Paris, he began his career as a journalist in the "interior policy" department of Le Monde newspaper. In 1965 he founded the Gault Millau restaurant guide Le Nouveau Guide with Henri Gault and André Gayot. He launched the famed Gault & Millau guide in 1969 with Henri Gault, which helped galvanise the movement of young French chefs developing lighter, more inventive and beautiful looking dishes. Some 100,000 copies of the guide were sold that year. He was originally slated to be one of the judges at the historic Judgment of Paris wine tasting event of 1976 but was replaced by his brother Claude Dubois-Millot.His friends announced his death on 7 August 2017 at the age of 88.

Henri_Meschonnic

Henri Meschonnic (18 September 1932, in Paris – 8 April 2009, in Villejuif) was a French poet, linguist, essayist and translator. He is remembered today as both a theoretician of language and as a translator of the Old Testament. The 710-page Critique du rythme, probably remains his most famous theoretical work. As a translator of the Old Testament he published many volumes, including Les cinq rouleaux in 1970 (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther); Jona et le signifiant errant in 1998 (Jonah); Gloires in 2000 (Psalms); Au commencement in 2002 (Genesis); Les Noms in 2003 (Exodus); Et il a appelé in 2005 (Leviticus); and Dans le désert in 2008 (Numbers).

André_Mandouze

André Mandouze (10 June 1916 in Bordeaux - 5 June 2006 in Porto-Vecchio), was a French academic and journalist, a Catholic, and an anti-fascist and anti-colonialist activist.
In January 1946, when he was offered a post at the University of Algiers, he accepted with alacrity—for him, Algeria was the birthplace of Saint Augustine, to whom he had dedicated his thesis at the Sorbonne.
A confidant of Léon-Etienne Duval, he agitated for the independence of Algeria. With other Catholic intellectuals, such as François Mauriac, Louis Massignon, Henri Guillemin, Henri-Irénée Marrou, Pierre-Henri Simon, he criticised the French Army for using of torture in Algeria, in the pages of Le Monde and France-Observateur,
In 1963, at the request of Ahmed Ben Bella, he became rector of the University of Algiers. But with the arrival in power of Houari Boumédiène, he resumed being a professor in the university and then returned to Paris to teach Latin at the Sorbonne.
He did not return to Algeria until 2001, to preside with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika over a colloquium on Saint Augustine who, for him, symbolised the link between Africaness and universalism.

Édouard_Luntz

Édouard Luntz (8 August 1931 – 26 February 2009) was a French film director. He directed nine films between 1959 and 1973. His 1966 film Les coeurs verts was entered into the 16th Berlin International Film Festival and his 1970 film Le dernier saut was entered into the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.

Élémir_Bourges

Élémir Bourges (26 March 1852, Manosque, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence – 13 November 1925) was a French novelist. A winner of the Goncourt Prize, he was also a member of the Académie Goncourt. Bourges, who accused the Naturalists of having "belittled and deformed man", was closely linked with the Decadent and Symbolist modes in literature. His works, which include the 1884 novel Le Crépuscule des dieux ("the Twilight of the Gods"), were informed by both Richard Wagner and the Elizabethan dramatists.