Jules Romains | |
---|---|
Jules Romains photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1936
|
|
Born | Louis Henri Jean Farigoule 26 August 1885 Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the Haute-Loire |
Died | 14 August 1972 Paris |
(aged 86)
Occupation | Poet and writer |
Language | French |
Education |
lycée Condorcet École normale supérieure |
Literary movement | Unanimism |
Notable awards | elected to the Académie française |
|
|
Signature |
Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule (26 August 1885 – 14 August 1972), was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine, and a cycle of works called Les Hommes de bonne volonté (Men of Good Will).
He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature sixteen times.
Jules Romains was born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the Haute-Loire but went to Paris to attend first the lycée Condorcet and then the prestigious École normale supérieure. He was close to the Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian group founded in 1906 by Charles Vildrac and René Arcos, which brought together, among others, the writer Georges Duhamel, the painter Albert Gleizes and the musician Albert Doyen. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1909.
In 1927, he signed a petition (that appeared in the magazine Europe on 15 April) against the law on the general organization of the nation in time of war, abrogating all intellectual independence and all freedom of expression. His name on the petition appeared with those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poulaille, Séverine... and those of the young Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre from the École normale supérieure.
His novel The Boys in the Back Room (Les Copains, literally "the pals") appeared in English in 1937.
During World War II he went into exile first to the United States where he spoke on the radio through the Voice of America and then, beginning in 1941, to Mexico where he participated with other French refugees in founding the Institut Français d'Amérique Latine (IFAL).