Hervé Bazin
Hervé Bazin was a French author known for his incisive exploration of family dynamics and childhood turmoil, particularly as reflected in his own life experiences. Born Jean Paul Marie Hervé-Bazin in Angers, France, in 1911, he grew up in a challenging familial environment characterized by conflict and authoritarianism, which heavily influenced his writing. His debut novel, "Vipère au poing" (1948), presents a vivid portrayal of his dysfunctional family, particularly through the character of his mother, whom he depicted in a harshly critical light. This work resonated with many readers, prompting them to reflect on their own family relationships and the nature of parental authority.
Bazin's literary contributions extend beyond his novels; he was involved in founding literary magazines and engaged with prominent figures in French literature, which helped shape his career. Throughout his life, he received several accolades, including membership in the Académie Goncourt and the Lenin Peace Prize. Bazin's personal life included four marriages and seven children. After his death in 1996, his literary legacy continued to be of interest, culminating in a posthumous auction of his papers, which were largely preserved by a university library in Angers.
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Hervé Bazin
Author
- Born: April 7, 1911
- Birthplace: Angers, France
- Died: February 17, 1996
Biography
Jean Paul Marie Hervé-Bazin, who wrote under the name Hervé Bazin, was the product of a dysfunctional bourgeois family living in the Loire Valley town of Angers, France, Bazin’s birthplace. His mother was an authoritarian bigot, and Bazin immortalized her ignominiously in some of his writing. In his first novel, Vipère au poing (1948; Grasping the Viper, 1950), he depicts her in the guise of Folcoche, a name he concocted by combining the French word folle, meaning crazy, with cochonne, meaning pig.
Bazin had a nightmarish childhood, with constant temperamental upheavals generated by his battling parents. He frequently ran away from home during his turbulent teen years. In 1931, when he was twenty, he effectively divorced himself from his family and escaped to Paris, where he existed initially at a bare subsistence level, doing whatever odd jobs he could find to survive. During this period, he wrote poetry but found few publishers willing to distribute it.
In 1946, he was instrumental in the creation of La Coquille, a literary magazine that folded after eight issues. Two years later, he was involved in the founding of a second journal, À la poursuite d’Iris. By this time, Bazin had become acquainted with several of France’s most celebrated literary figures centered in Paris. Among these was poet Paul Valéry, who was intrigued by Bazin’s tormented early life and urged him to write a novel about his early years and his bizarre, neurotic family.
Post-World War II France was ripe for iconoclastic literature focusing on teenage rebellion and strained family relations. Bazin’s Vipère au poing was a resounding success that paved the way for his future writing, in which his depiction of family relationships was always psychologically convincing. Many readers found suggestions of their own backgrounds in Bazin’s novels, but in most cases their recollections were of situations that were not as excessive as those Bazin described. The hatred that existed among Folcoche and her children was extreme, but Bazin’s depiction of it made many readers reassess their family relationships and perhaps think more charitably about their own parents, who in comparison to Bazin’s mother seemed somewhat benign.
Bazin became a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1958 and served as its president in 1973. As a member of the communistic Mouvement de la paix, he was awarded the prestigious Lenin Peace Prize in 1979. He was married four times and had seven children.
In 1995, Bazin gave his papers to the record office in Nancy, France. Following his death in 1996, six of his children sued to obtain these papers and sell them at auction, which they finally succeeded in doing on October 29, 2004. The university library in Angers purchased and preserved most of the manuscripts of Bazin’s novels and more than nine thousand letters that were sold at the auction.