Jean Prévost

Jean Prévost (June 13, 1901 – August 1, 1944) was a French writer and Resistance fighter.

Born in in Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours, his father was a principal in Montivilliers. After his secondary studies at the lycée Corneille in Rouen, he studied at the lycée Henri-IV in Paris under the philosopher Alain, to prepare for his entry to the École normale supérieure, in 1919.

In 1926 he married Marcelle Auclair with whom he had three children (Michel, Francoise and Alain).

At the beginning of World War II, he was mobilized and assigned to telephone control at Le Havre. After his first marriage ended, he married Claude Van Biema, a doctor. He was evacuated by sea to Casablanca and returned to France later.

He joined the underground National Committee of Writers, created by Louis Aragon and his wife, and took part in the creation of the clandestine newspaper "Les Étoiles" at the end of 1942. He wrote a doctoral thesis: "La création chez Stendhal, essai sur le métier d'écrire et la psychologie de l'écrivain" (Creativity in Stendhal, essay on the craft of writing and the psychology of the writer), which won the grand prize for literature of the Académie française in 1943.

He was a Resistance fighter under the name of Captaine Goderville (the village where his father was from). He was killed in an ambush in Sassenage.

The lycées (secondary schools) in Villard-de-Lans and Montivilliers are named in his honor.

Bibliography

* "Plaisirs des sports", 1925 ;
* "Dix-huitième année", 1928 ;
* "Les frères Bouquinquant", 1930 ;
* "Vie de Montaigne, essai", 1931
* "Histoire de la France depuis la guerre", 1932 ;
* "Le sel sur la plaie, roman", 1934 ;
* "La chasse du matin, roman", 1937 ;
* "Lucie-Paulette", 1935 ;
* "La Terre est aux hommes", 1936 ;
* "Usonie, esquisse de la civilisation américaine", 1939 ;
* "Beaudelaire, essai", 1953.

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050315090840/http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/vercors/secondai/lcjp/ljpold/prevost/index.htm Biography]
* [http://www.lesimpressionsnouvelles.com/jean_prevost_aux_avant_postes.htm Les Impressions nouvelles - Jean Prévost aux avant-postes]
* [http://www.jeanprevost.org/ www.jeanprevost.org]