Georges Bernanos

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Template:French literature (small) Georges Bernanos (February 20 1888, Paris—July 5 1948, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. Of Roman Catholic and monarchist leanings, he was a violent adversary to bourgeois thought and to what he identified as defeatism leading to France's defeat in 1940.

He was born into a family of craftsmen, and served in the first world war as a soldier, and afterwards worked in insurance before writing Sous le soleil de Satan. Despite his anti-democratic learnings and his allegiance to Action Française, he was able to see the danger in Fascism and Nazism (which he described as "disgusting monstrousness") before World War II broke out in Europe, but not after celebrating their Catholic allies - Francisco Franco, and the quasi-Fascist Falange - during the Spanish Civil War (Bernanos spent part of the conflict in Mallorca, and was disappointed in the Francoist cause). His Spanish experience is recorded in Les Grands Cimetières sous la Lune.

He emigrated to South America 1938, and stayed there till 1945, for most of the time in Brazil, where he tried his hand at managing a farm. His three sons returned to France to fight when World War II broke out, while he fulminated at his country's 'spiritual exhaustion' which he saw as the root of its collapse in 1940. From exile he mocked the 'ridiculous' Vichy regime and became a strong supporter of the nationalist Free French Forces led by the conservative Charles de Gaulle.

After the liberation, de Gaulle invited him to return to France, offering him a post in the government. Bernanos did return, but did not participate actively in French political life.

His writings are sharply critical of modern society and its inroads into personal liberty, both through government and through technical development. He was an isolated figure, but maintained a very high reputation among his fellow-writers in France.

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Major works

Sous le soleil de Satan 1926 (made into a film by the same name by Maurice Pialat in 1987)
L'imposture 1927
La joie 1929 (winner of the Prix Femina)
La grande peur des bien-pensants 1931
Jeanne relapse et sainte 1934
Un crime 1935
Journal d'un curé de campagne 1936 (winner of the Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française)
Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette 1937 (later made into the film Mouchette by Robert Bresson)
Les grands cimetières sous la lune 1938
Scandale de la vérité 1939
Nous autres français 1939
Lettre aux anglais 1946 (originally published in Rio de Janeiro in 1942)
La France contre les robots 1947 (originally published in Rio de Janeiro in 1946)
Français, si vous saviez (collection of articles written between 1945–1948) 1961
Le chemin de la Croix-des-Âmes 1948
Dialogue des carmélites 1949
Les enfants humiliés 1949
Un mauvais rêve 1950
Monsieur Ouine 1950
La liberté, pour quoi faire ? 1953
Combat pour la vérité; Correspondance inédite 1904-1934 1961
Combat pour la liberté; Correspondance inédite 1934-1948 1961
La vocation spirituelle de la France (collection of articles assembled by J.-L. Bernanos) 1975
Les prédestinés (includes "Sainte Dominique" 1926, "Jeanne relapse et sainte," and "Frère Martin" 1943) 1983
Lettres retrouvées. Correspondance inédite 1904-1948 1983