Numerous compatriots who before and after him won the Nobel Prize for literature, such as Albert Camus. Each of them, however, had a characteristic trait, let’s see that of Anatole France, author of the twentieth century.
Who was Anatole France
Anatole France, born Jacques François-Anatole Thibault (Paris, April 16, 1844 – Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, October 12, 1924), was a French writer. It grows surrounded by great culture as its neighborhood is full of exponents from the world of books, from antique dealers to booksellers and publishers including his father.
Receives one classical training which leads him to follow this direction also at work, starting to collaborate first with bibliographic journals and then through writings.
Start with a essay in 1868 which will also be followed by a series of novels born from the inspiration received every day in that cultural environment.
The first years of the literary career
On a working basis, he dedicates his time to Senate Library, where he was hired in 1876, but was unable to leave writing aside. In fact, he publishes two short stories, one of which is recognized as a great masterpiece for both critics and readers.
Gets more and more success and takes part in lounges together with great intellectuals and also writes as a literary critic for several newspapers. Subsequently begins the most prosperous twenty years for France, which publishes his most successful works that give him more and more supporters.
The great success and the Nobel Prize
In the meantime, he joins the French Academy and he devotes himself to writing four novels centered on the description of the society of his time, highlighting the difficulties and contradictions with which the man who, however, can obtain a redemption and therefore rise up, has to fight.
However, the stance is not always easy to manage but the need to expose himself is more and more alive in him and so he takes sides against the tsarist repression, he tells his thoughts on the historical events of Joan of Arc and so on. Not by chance in fact he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “In recognition of his brilliant literary achievement, characterized by nobility of style, deep human understanding, grace, and true Gallic temperament” in 1921.
READ ALSO: Who was Jean-Paul Sartre: life of the great writer and philosopher