French novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, journalist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952. François Mauriac belonged to the long tradition of French Roman Catholic writers, who examined the problems of good and evil in human nature and in the world.

"There is no accident in our choice of reading. All our sources are related." (from Mauriac's Mémoires Intérieures, 1959)

François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux, the youngest son of Jean-Paul Mauriac, a wealthy businessman. When Mauriac was not quite two years old, his father died, and the family lived with grandparents. His mother was a devout Catholic, who was influenced by Jansenist thought. From the age of seven, Mauriac attended a school run by the Marianite Order. The author never ceased to acknowledge the importance of his early education although he was unhappy at Ste Marie.

After studies at the University of Bordeaux, Mauriac received his licence (the equivalent of an M.A.) in 1905. Next year he went to Paris to prepare for entrance in the École des Chartes, where he was accepted in 1908. However, Mauriac remained at the school only a few months and then decided to devote himself entirely to literature. His first volume of poems, LES MAINS JOINTES, appeared in 1909.

Mauriac's work show influence from several writers. He published studies on Racine and Marcel Proust, but Pascal was perhaps the most important thinker for him. Mauriac's style was poetic, full of suggestion. He said, "I believe that only poetry counts and that only through the poetical elements enclosed in a work of art of any genre whatever does that work deserve to last. A great novelist is first of all a great poet." Mauriac's early works depicted the struggle of passion and conscience, but after a spiritual crisis he solved this conflict in favor of the spirit: "Christianity makes no provision for the flesh. It suppresses it."

In 1913 Mauriac married Jeanne Lafon; their first child, Claude, became also a novelist. During WW I Mauriac served in the Balkans as a Red Cross hospital orderly. After the war he wrote two novels, but it was LE BAISER AU LÉPREUX (1922, The Kiss to the Leper), in which he found his own voice. The tragic story was about a wealthy but hideously ugly young man who is destroyed by an arranged marriage with a beautiful peasant girl. Mauriac's following novels about tormented souls were viewed with increasing distate by Catholic right wing and eventually the Catholic press in general labelled the author as a renegane, who was obsessed with degraded characters.

LE DÉSER DE L'AMOUR (1925) continued Mauriac's theme of the futility of love. In the novel a sexually frigid young widow provokes the passions of both her physician and his son. THÉRÈSE DESQUEYROUX (1927), based on an actual murder trial of Madame Henriette-Blance Canaby, is acclaimed as one of the best French novels. She was accused of having attempted to poison her husband, but he refused to testify against his wife. In the story a young wife, Thérèse, is driven to murder her husband, a coarse landowner. This work contained some of the central themes running through Mauriac's fiction: the oppression of French provincial life, the sexual pressures, the mystery of sin and redemption. The savage beauty of the countryside to the south of Bordeaux provided the backgroud against which Mauriac portrayed his characters. Fascinated by the fate of Thérèse, Mauriac went on to write two short stories and one more novel about her. LE NŒAUD DE VIPÈRES (1932, Viper's Tangle) was a family drama, and one of Mauriac's greatest novels. The protagonist is an old man Louis, whose determination to keep his money from his wife and children start a counterpoint against him. Again materialism creates an obstacle for spiritual growth.

In 1933 Mauriac was elected to the Académie Française. He began contribute to the French newspaper Le Figaro, where he often attacked the rising Fascism. In the late 1930s Mauriac began to write plays. However, they never achieved the success of his novels, although ASMODÉE was performed 100 times in 1937-1938 at the Comédie Française.

During German occupation of France in World War II, Mauriac wrote under the pseudonym Forez a protest against German tyranny and was forced to hide with his family for some time. This work, LE CAHIER NOIR (1943) was published by Les Editions de Minuit and was then smuggled to London, where it was used used as a propaganda tool. LA PHARISEINNE, which appeared in 1941, was read as an allegory of France's surrender to Nazi Germany.

In the 1950s Mauriac became a supporter of de Gaulle and his anticolonial policies in Morocco, but condemned the use of torture by the French army in Algeria, and allied with Catholics on the left. From the mid-1950s Mauriac wrote a weekly newspaper column, Bloc-Notes, which gained a large audience. He also published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of de Gaulle. Mauriac died on September 1, 1970, in Paris.

For further reading: François Mauriac by J. Robichon (1953); François Mauriac by M. Jarrett-Kerr (1954); François Mauriac: A Critical Study by by M.F. Moloney (1958); François Mauriac by M. Alyn (1960); Faith and Fiction by P. Stratford (1964); Mauriac by C. Jenkins (1965); François Mauriac by M.A. Smith (1970); Mauriac by E. Kushner (1972); Mauriac by M. Alyn et al (1977); François Mauriac by J. Lacouture (1980); Mauriac: The Politics of a Novelist by M. Scott (1980); Francois Mauriac: Visions and Reappraisals, ed. by John E. Flower et al. (1991); Francois Mauriac Revisited by David O'Connell (1995); Female Victims and Oppressors in Novels by Theodore Fontane and Francois Mauriac by Susan Wansink (1998); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, vol. 3, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999) - Claude Mauriac (1914-1996) French novelist and critic, the eldest son of novelist François Mauriac, interpreter of the avant-garde school of nouveau roman, "new novel". Mauriac worked a private secretary to Charles de Gaulle in 1944-1949 and later as a film and literary critic for the newspaper Le Figaro.Selected works:TOUTES LES FEMMES SONT FATALES, 1957 (All Women Are Fatal); L'ALLITÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE, 1958 (The New Literature); LE DÍNER EN VILLE, 1959 (The Dinner Party); LA MARQUISE SORTIT Á CINQ HEURES, 1961 (The Marquise Went Out at Five); L'AGRANDISSENMENT, 1963 (The Enlargement); LA CONVERSATION, 1964; LE TEMPS IMMOBILE, 1974-1988, 10 vols. (Time Immobilized); UNE CERTAINE RAGE, 1977; L'ÉTERNITÊ PARFOIS, 1978 (Occasional Eternity) - See also: Graham Greene, Elie Wiesel, Georges Bernanos, Jerzy Andrzejewski

Selected works:

• LES MAINS JOINTES, 1909
• L'ADIEU À L'ADOLESCENCE, 1911
• L'ENFANT CHARGÉ DE CHÂINES, 1913 - Young Man in Chains (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1961)
• LA ROBE PRÉTEXTE, 1914 - The Stuff of Youth (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1953)
• DE QUELQUES CŒURS IN QUIETS, 1920
• LA CHAIR ET LE SANG, 1920 - Flesh and Blood (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1954)
• PRÉSÉANCES, 1921 - Questions of Precedence (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1958)
• LE BAISER AU LÉPREUX, 1922 - The Kiss to the Leper (tr. James Whitall, 1923) / A Kiss for the Leper (tr. Gerard Hopkins, 1950) - Pyhä suudelma (suom. Arvi Nuormaa, 1943) - television film 1979, dir. by André Michel, starring Nathalie Juvet, Michel Caccia, Georges Goubert
• LE FLEUVE DE FEU, 1923 - The River of Fire (tr. Gerald Hopkins, 1954)
• GÉNITRIX, 1923 - Genetrix (tr. in The Family, 1930) - television film 1973, dir. by Paul Paviot, starring Maria Meriko, Michel Auclair, Monique Lejeune
• LE MAL, 1924 - The Enemy (with The Desert of Love, tr. Gerard Hopkins, 1949)
• LA VIE ET LA MORT D'UN POÈTE, 1924
• ORAGES, 1925 (rev. ed., 1949)
• LE DÉSERT DE L'AMOUR, 1925 - The Desert of Love (with The Enemy, tr. Gerard Hopkins, 1929)
• BORDEAUX, 1926
• LE JEUNE HOMME, 1926
• PROUST, 1926
• FABIEN, 1926
• LA PROVINCE, 1926
• LA RENCONTRE AVED PASCAL, 1926
• LE TOURMENT DE JAQUES RIVIÈRE, 1926
• THÉRÈSE DESQUEYROUX, 1927 - Thérèse (tr. Eric Sutton, 1928; Gerard Hopkins, 1947) - Myrkyttäjätär (suom. Anna-Liisa Sohlberg, 1946) - film 1962, dir. by Georges Franju, starring Emmanuelle Riva, Philippe Noiret, Edith Scob
• DESTINS, 1928 - Destines (tr. by Eric Sutton, 1929) / Lines of Life (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1957) - television film 1965, dir. by Pierre Cardinal
• LE ROMAN, 1928
• LA VIE RACINE, 1928
• DIEU ET MAMMON, 1929 - God and Mammon (tr. by Raymond N. MacKenzie, 1936)
• TROIS RECITS, 1929
• VOLTAIRE ET CENTRE PASCAL, 1930
• TROIS GRANDS HOMMES DEVANT DIEU, 1930
• CE QUI ÉTAT PERDU, 1930 - Suspicion (tr. Harold F. Kynaston-Snell, 1931) / That Which Was Lost (with Dark Angels, tr. by J.H.F. McEwen, 1951)
• SOUFFRANCES ET BONHEUR DU CHRÉTIEN, 1931 - Anguish and Joy of the Christian Life (tr. by Harold Evans, 1964)
• COMMENCEMENT D'UNE VIE, SUIVI DE BORDEAUX, 1931
• JEUDI SAINT, 1931 - Maundy Thursday (tr. 1932) / The Eucharist (tr. Marie-Louise Defeenoy, 1941)
• L'AFFAIRE FAVRE-BULLE, 1931
• BLAISE PASCAL ET SA SŒUR JACQUELINE, 1931
• RENÉ BAZIN, 1931
• PÈLERINS, 1932 (as Pèlerins de Lourdes, 1933)
• LE NŒUD DE VIPÈRES, 1932 - Viper's Tangle (tr. by Warre B. Wells, 1933) / The Knot of Vipers= Le noeud de vipe`res (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1951) - Käärmesolmu (suom. Mary Ohlström, 1936) - television film 1980, dir. by Jacques Trébouta, starring Pierre Dux, Suzanne Flon, Michel Peyrelon
• LE ROMANCIER ET SES PERSONNAGES, 1933 (reprinted as L'Education des filles, 1936)
• LE MYSTÈRE FRONTENAC, 1933 - The Frontenacs (tr. by Gerard Hopkins) / The Frontenac Mystery (tr. 1952) - television film 1975, dir. by Maurice Frydland, starring Gilles Laurent, Alain Liboltm, Gérard Ismaël
• PÈLERINS DE LAURDES, 1933
• LE DRÔLE, 1933 - The Holy Terror (tr. Anne Carter, 1964)
• JOURNAL, 1934-51 (5 vols.)
• LAL MAL, 1935 - The Enemy (tr. with The Desert of Love, 1949)
• LA FIN DE LA NUIT, 1935 - The End of the Night (in Therese: A Portrait in Four Parts, tr.Gerard Hopkins, 1947) - television film 1966, dir. by Albert Riéra, starring Emmanuelle Riva, Rachel Cathoud, Suzanne Michel
• LES ANGES NOIRS, 1936 - The Dark Angels (with That Which Was Lost, tr. Gerard Hopkins, 1951) / The Mask of Innocence (tr. 1953)
• VIE DE JÉSUS, 1936 - Life of Jesus (tr. by Julie Kernan, 1937)
• ASMODÉE, 1937 (play) - Asmodee; or, The Intruider (tr. by Basil Bartlett, 1939) / Asmodeé, a drama in three acts (tr. by Beverly Thurman, 1957) - television film 1966, dir. by Håkan Ersgård
• PLONGÉES, 1938
• LES CHEMINS DE LA MER, 1939 - The Unknown Sea (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1948)
• LES MAISONS FUGITIVES, 1939
• LA PHARISEINNE, 1941 - A Woman of Pharisees (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1946) - Täydellisyyden kudos (suom. Anna-Liisa Sohlberg, 1944) - television film 1980, dir. by Gilbert Pineau, Alice Sapritch, Thierry Fouques, Luc Olivier
• LE SANG D'ATYS, 1941
• LE CAHIER NOIR, 1943 - The Black Notebook (tr. by Robert Speaight, 1944)
• NE PAS SE RENIER, 1944
• LA RENCONTRE AVEC BARRÈS, 1945
• SAINTE MARGUERITE DE CORTONE, 1945 - Saint Margaret of Cortona (tr. by Bernard Frechtman, 1948)
• LE BÂILLON DÉNOUÉ, 1945
• LES MAL-AIMÉS, 1945 (play)
• DU CÔTE DE CHEZ PROUST, 1947 - Proust's Way (tr. by Elsie Pell, 1950)
• Therese: A Portrait in Four Parts, 1947
• PASSAGE DU MALIN, 1948 (play, prod. 1947)
• JOURNAL D'UN HOMME DE TRENTE ANS, 1948
• LE DÉSERT DE L'AMOUR, 1949 - The Desert of Love (with The Enemy, tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1949)
• TERRES FRANCISCAINES, 1950
• MES GRANDS HOMMES, 1950 - Men I Hold Great (tr. by Elsie Pell, 1951) / Great Men (tr. 1952)
• OEUVRES COMPLÈTES, 1950-56 (12 vols.)
• LE SAUGOUIN, 1951 - The Little Misery (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1952) / The Weakling and The Enemy (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1952) - television film 1972, dir. by Serge Moati, starring Marie-Christine Barrault, Muse Dalbray Gilles Laurent
• LA PIERRE D'ACHOPPEMENT, 1951 - The Stumbling Block (tr. 1952)
• LE FEU SUR LA TERRE, 1951 (play, prod. 1950)
• LETTRES OUVERTES, 1952 - Letters on Art and Literature (tr. by Mario A. Pei, 1953)
• GALIGAÏ, 1952 - The Loved and the Unloved (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1952)
• ÉCRITS INTIMES, 1953
• PAROLES CATHOLIQUES, 1954 - Words of Faith (tr. by Edward H. Flannery, 1955)
• L'AGNEAU, 1954 - The Lamb (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, 1955) - Karitsa (suom. Maija Lehtonen, 1955)
• LE PAIN VIVANT, 1955 (play)
• LES FILS DE L'HOMME, 1958 - The Son of Man (tr. by Bernard Murchland, 1958)
• BLOC-NOTES, 1952-1957, 1958-71 (5 vols.)
• MÉMOIRES, 1959-67
• MÉMOIRES INTÉRIEURS, 1959 - Mémoires Intérieurs (tr. 1960)
• RAPPORT SUR LES PRIX DE VERTU, 1960
• NOVEAUX BLOC-NOTES, 1958-1960, 1961
• Second Thoughts: Reflections on Literature and Life, 1961 (tr. by Adrienne Foulke)
• LA VIE DE RACINE, 1962
• Cain, Where Is Your Brother?, 1962
• CE QUE JE CROIS, 1962 - What I Believe (tr. by Wallace Fowlie, 1963)
• THÉRÈSE, 1963 (screenplay, with Claude Mauriac and Georges Franju)
• DE GAULLE, 1964 - De Gaulle (tr. by Richard Howard, 1966)
• NOVEAUX MÉMOIRES INTÉRIEURS, 1965 - The Inner Presence (tr. by Herma Briffault, 1968) / Nouveaux me´moires intérieurs = More reflections from the soul (tr. by Mary Kimbrough)
• NOVEAUX BLOC-NOTES, 1961-1964, 1965
• D'AUTRES ET MOI, 1966
• MÉMOIRES POLITIQUES, 1967
• A Mauriac Reader, 1968 (tr. by Gerard Hopkins, introd. by Wallace Fowlie)
• UN ADOLESCENT D'AUTREFOIS, 1969 - Maltaverne (tr. by Jean Stewart, 1970) - television film 1983, dir. by André Miche, starring Madeleine Robinson, Jean-Pierre Klein, Catherine Salviat
• DERNIERS BLOC-NOTES, 1968-1970, 1971
• CORRESPONDANCE ANDRÉ GIDE - F.M., 1912-1950, 1971 (ed. Jacqueline Morton)
• Thérèse, 1972 (translated by Gerard Hopkins)
• CORRESPONDANCE F.N.-JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE, 1916-1942, 1976
• LAÇORDAIRE, 1976 (ed. Keith Goesch)
• MAURIAC AVANT MAURIAC, 1977 (ed. Jean Touzot)
• CHRONIQUES DU JOURNAL DE CLICHY, 1978 (with Paul Claudel, ed. by François Morlot and Jean Touzot)
• ŒUVRES ROMANESQUES ET THÉÂTRALES COMPLÈTES, 1978-81 (3 vols., ed. by Jacques Petit)
• LETTRES D'UNE VIE (1904-1969), 1981 (ed. Caroline Mauriac)