Octave Mirbeau
| Octave Mirbeau | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
16 February 1848 Trévières, France |
| Died | 16 February 1917 (aged 69) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Novelist, Playwright, Journalist, Pamphleteer |
| Genre | novel, comedy, chronicles, art critic |
| Literary movement | Impressionism, Expressionism |
| Notable works | Les affaires sont les affaires (1903) |
Le Journal d'une femme de chambre (1900)
Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde. His work has been translated into thirty languages.
The grandson of Norman notaries and the son of a doctor, Mirbeau spent his childhood in a village in Normandy, Rémalard, pursuing secondary studies at a Jesuit college in Vannes, which expelled him at the age of fifteen. Two years after the traumatic experience of the 1870 war, he was tempted by a call from the Bonapartist leader Dugué de la Fauconnerie, who hired him as private secretary and introduced him to L'Ordre de Paris.
After his debut in journalism in the service of the Bonapartists, and his debut in literature when he worked as a ghostwriter, Mirbeau began to publish under his own name. Thereafter, he wrote in order to express his own ethical principles and aesthetic values. A supporter of the anarchist cause (cf. La Grève des électeurs) and fervent supporter of Alfred Dreyfus, Mirbeau embodied the intellectual who involved himself in civic issues. Independent of all parties, Mirbeau believed that one's primary duty was to remain lucid.
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