Roland Dorgelès
Roland Dorgelès, born Roland Lécavelé on June 15, 1886, in Amiens, France, was a prominent French author and journalist, best known for his influential war novel "Les Croix de bois" (1919). Raised in a strict religious environment by an evangelical minister, Dorgelès moved to Paris in his late teens to pursue a career in art. However, he soon shifted to writing, becoming part of the Montmartre bohemian scene alongside notable figures like Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso. Dorgelès volunteered for military service at the onset of World War I, serving for four years and earning recognition for his bravery.
His landmark work, "Les Croix de bois," realistically depicted the trench warfare experience through the lives of ordinary soldiers, gaining significant acclaim and translating into multiple languages. Although he published over thirty works in his lifetime, none matched the success of his debut novel. Dorgelès also served as a war correspondent during World War II and was a member of the Académie Goncourt, where he influenced French literature by directing the prestigious Prix Goncourt from 1954 until his death in 1973. His contributions to literature, particularly through his vivid portrayal of wartime experiences, continue to resonate with readers today.
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Roland Dorgelès
Writer
- Born: June 15, 1886
- Birthplace: Amiens, France
- Died: March 18, 1973
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Roland Dorgelès was the pseudonyn of Roland Lécavelé who was born on June 15, 1886, in Amiens in northern France. His father was an evangelical minister who sent Dorgelès to Catholic schools. His childhood within this strict religious environment was an experience that would later cause Dorgelès to reject stifling conservatism.
Dorgelès went to Paris in his late teens and matriculated at the École des Beaux Arts with ambitions of being a painter. He quickly became part of the Montmartre bohemians, free-spirited avant-garde artists and writers (among them Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso) who rejected inherited assumptions about art and experimented with form and expression. By 1908, Dorgelès, finding school restrictive, set aside his hopes of becoming an artist and turned to writing, working as a journalist and developing a sardonic, often ironic voice very much in keeping with the absurdist humor of the Montmartre set.
Dorgelès immediately volunteered for military service at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, believing that what was at stake was the very personal freedom he had long advocated in his writings. He served with distinction for four years and was decorated for bravery. After the war, Dorgelès published his defining work, Les Croix de bois (1919; Wooden Crosses, 1921), a realistic record of life in the trenches among common soldiers. The book was a sensation when it appeared. Devoid of strident antiwar messages or political propaganda, the novel recreated the war experience through vignettes of characters—factory workers, students, and farmers—caught up in the difficult and bloody struggle for daily survival. Uncomfortable with heavy symbolism, stylistic flourishes, or probing psychological nuances, Dorgelès captured the war experience with uncomplicated immediacy. The book, translated into dozens of languages, remained a best-seller in France for years. Despite being a first novel, it placed second for the prestigious Prix Goncourt and was awarded the Prix Femina.
Although Dorgelès would write more than thirty titles over the next four decades, frequently returning to the subject of war, he would never replicate the success of his first work. He would enjoy a certain celebrity from a series of well-received travel books that explored exotic ports of call, including Africa, the Far East, and the Middle East. During World War II, Dorgelès served as a war correspondent and, following the war, returned to writing, producing a steady stream of novels and memoirs that sold well but failed to impress the critical establishment. Apart from Les Croix de bois, Dorgelès’s most significant impact came as a member of the prestigious Académie Goncourt, to which he was elected in 1929, and which he served as president from 1954 until his death in 1973. In that capacity, Dorgelès exercised enormous power for nearly half a century as the guiding light of the jury responsible for conferring the Prix Goncourt, thus directing to a great extent the direction of postwar French literature. He died in Paris on March 18, 1973. His landmark war novel remains his defining achievement: remarkable as a war novel that quietly reveals the enormous sacrifices everyday men make in the heroic commitment to fight.