French novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, journalist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952. 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.

"His characters do not have their literal counterpart in the world of everyday experience. Here he breaks with the naturalistic tradition with which in so many ways he is closely identified. He is primarily the chronicler not of human actions separate and distinct from himself but his own real and imagined life."
(Michael F. Moloney in François Mauriac, 1958)

François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux as 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, and the author never ceased to acknowledge the importance of his early education. Although he was unhappy at Ste Marie. Mauriac studied at the University of Bordeaux, receiving his licence (the equivalent of an M.A.) in 1905. Next year he went to Paris to prepare for entrance to the École des Chartes. He was accepted in 1908 but Mauriac remained at the school only a few months and decided to devote himself entirely to literature. His first volume of poems, LES MAINS JOINTES, appeared in 1909.

Mauriac's work shows influence from several writers. He wrote 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 wrote "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 favour of the spirit: "Christianity makes no provision for the flesh. It suppresses it."

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), that became a huge success. The following novels were condemned by the Catholic right wing. The Kiss to the Leper was a story of a wealthy but hideously ugly young man who is destroyed by an arranged marriage with a beautiful peasant girl.

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) was acclaimed as one of the best French novels of the period. The book was based on an actual murder trial. In the story a young wife, Thérèse, is driven to murder her husband, a coarse landowner. It contained in their most concentrated form the central themes running through Mauriac's fiction: the oppression of French provincial life, sexual pressures, the mystery of sin and redemption, and the savage beauty of the countryside to the south of Bordeaux. LE NOAUD 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 conspiracy against him.

In 1933 Mauriac was elected to the Académie Française. He began writing for the French newspaper Le Figaro and often attacked the rising of Fascism. In the late 1930s Mauriac started 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 the German occupation of France in World War II, Mauriac wrote a protest against German tyranny and was forced to hide for some time. In the 1950s he became a supporter of de Gaulle and his anti-colonial policies in Morocco. He wrote for Algerian independence, 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.

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

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) - SEE: Claude Mauriac further below - See also: Graham Greene, Elie Wiesel, Georges Bernanos, Jerzy Andrzejewski

• LES MAINS JOINTES, 1909 - Joined Hands
• L'ADIEU À L'ADOLESCENCE, 1911
• L'ENFANT CHARGÉ DE CHÂINES, 1913 - Young Man in Chains
• LA ROBE PRÉTEXTE, 1914 - The Stuff of Youth
• DE QUELQUES COURS IN QUIETS, 1920
• LA CHAIR ET LE SANG, 1920 - Flesh and Blood
• PRÉSÉANCES, 1921 - Questions of Precedence
• LE BAISER AU LÉPREUX, 1922 - The Kiss to the Leper
• LE FLEUVE DE FEU, 1923 - The River of Fire
• GÉNITRIX, 1923 - The Family
• LE MAL, 1924 - The Enemy
• LA VIE ET LA MORT D'UN POÈTE, 1924
• ORAGES, 1925
• LE DÉSERT DE L'AMOUR, 1925 - The Desert of Love
• BORDEAUX, 1926
• LE JEUNE HOMME, 1926
• PROUST, 1926
• FABIEN, 1926
• LA PROVINCE, 1926
• LA RENCONTRE AVED PASCAL, 1926
• LE TOURMENT DE JAQUES RIVIÈRE, 1926
• THÈRÉSE DESQUEYROUX, 1927 - Thèrése - film 1962, dir. by Georges Franju
• DESTINS, 1928 - Destines / Lines of Life
• LE ROMAN, 1928
• LA VIE RACINE, 1928
• DIEU ET MAMMON, 1929 - God and Mammon
• CE QUI ÉTAIT PERDU, 1929 - Suspicion
• TROIS RECITS, 1929
• VOLTAIRE ET CENTRE PASCAL, 1930
• TROIS GRANDS HOMMES DEVANT DIEU, 1930
• CE QUI ÉTAT PERDU, 1930 - That Which Was Lost
• SOUFFRANCES ET BONHEUR DU CHRÉTIEN, 1931 - Anguish and Joy of the Christian Life
• COMMENCEMENT D'UNE VIE, SUIVI DE BORDEAUX, 1931
• JEUDI SAINT, 1931
• L'AFFAIRE FAVRE-BULLE, 1931
• BLAISE PASCAL ET SA SOUR JACQUELINE, 1931
• RENÉ BAZIN, 1931
• LE NOUD DE VIPÈRES, 1932 - Viper's Tangle
• LE ROMANCIER ET SES PERSONNAGES, 1933 - The Novelist and His Characters
• LE MYSTÈRE FRONTENAC, 1933 - The Frontenac Mystery
• PÈLERINS DE LAURDES, 1933
• LE DRÔLE, 1933 - The Holy Terror
• JOURNAL, 1934-51 (5 vol.)
• LA FIN DE LA NUIT, 1935 - The End of the Night
• LEAS ANGES NOIRS, 1936 - The Mask of Innocence
• VIE DE JÉSUS, 1936 - Life of Jesus
• ASMODÉE, 1937 - The Intruder
• PLONGÉES, 1938
• LES CHEMINS DE LA MER, 1939 - The Unknown Sea
• LES MAISONS FUGITIVES, 1939
• LA PHARISEINNE, 1941 - A Woman of Pharisees
• LE SANG D'ATYS, 1941
• LE CAHIER NOIR, 1943 - The Black Notebook
• NE PAS SE RENIER, 1944
• LA RENCONTRE AVEC BARRÈS, 1945
• SAINTE MARGUERITE DE CORTONE, 1945 - Saint Margaret of Cortona
• LE BÂILLON DÉNOUÉ, 1945
• LES MAL-AIMÉS, 1945
• Therese, 1947
• DU CÔTE DE CHEZ PROUST, 1947 - Proust's Way
• PASSAGE DU MALIN, 1948
• JOURNAL D'UN HOMME DE TRENTE ANS, 1948
• LE DÉSERT DE L'AMOUR, 1949 - The Desert of Love
• TERRES FRANCISCAINES, 1950
• MES GRANDS HOMMES, 1950 - Men I Hold Great
• LE SAUGOUIN, 1951 - The Weakling
• LA PIERRE D'ACHOPPEMENT, 1951 - The Stumbling Block
• LE FEU SUR LA TERRE, 1951
• LETTRES OUVERTES, 1952 - Letters on Art and Literature
• GALIGAÏ, 1952 - The Loved and the Unloved
• ÉCRITS INTIMES, 1953
• PAROLES CATHOLIQUES, 1954 - Words of Faith
• L'AGNEAU, 1954 - The Lamb
• LE PAIN VIVANT, 1955
• LES FILS DE L'HOMME, 1958 - The Son of Man
• BLOC-NOTES, 1952-1957, 1958
• MÉMOIRES, 1959-67
• MÉMOIRES INTÉRIEURS, 1959 - transl.
• NOVEAUX BLOC-NOTES, 1958-1960, 1961
• Second Thoughts, 1961
• LA VIE DE RACINE, 1962
• Cain, Where Is Your Brother?, 1962
• CE QUE JE CROIS, 1962 - What I Believe
• DE GAULLE, 1964
• NOVEAUX MÉMOIRES INTÉRIEURS, 1965
• NOVEAUX BLOC-NOTES, 1961-1964, 1965
• D'AUTRES ET MOI, 1966
• MÉMOIRES POLITIQUES, 1967
• UN ADOLESCENT D'AUTREFOIS, 1969 - Maltaverne
• DERNIERS BLOC-NOTES, 1968-1970, 1971
• CORRESPONDANCE ANDRÉ GIDE- F.M., 1912-1950, 1971
• CORRESPONDANCE F.N.-JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE, 1916-1942, 1976
• OUVRES ROMANESQUES ET THÉÂTRALES COMPLÈTES, 1978-

  Claude Mauriac (1914-) 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, 10 vol., 1974-1988 - Time Immobilized
• UNE CERTAINE RAGE, 1977
• L'ÉTERNITÊ PARFOIS, 1978 - Occasional Eternity