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André Paul Guillaume Gide (22 November 1869—19 February 1951) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 author
Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
 and winner of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
 in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist
Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French and Belgium origin in symbolist poetry and other arts....
 movement, to the advent of anticolonialism
Anti-imperialism

Anti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to some form of imperialism. Generally, anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture....
 between the two World Wars.

Known for his fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
 as well as his autobiographical
Autobiography

An autobiography is a biography written by its subject . The term was first used by the poet Robert Southey in 1809 in the English language Periodical publication Quarterly Review, but the form goes back to antiquity....
 works, Gide exposes to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation between the two sides of his personality, split apart by a strait-laced education and a narrow social moralism.






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André Paul Guillaume Gide (22 November 1869—19 February 1951) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 author
Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
 and winner of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
 in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist
Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French and Belgium origin in symbolist poetry and other arts....
 movement, to the advent of anticolonialism
Anti-imperialism

Anti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to some form of imperialism. Generally, anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture....
 between the two World Wars.

Known for his fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
 as well as his autobiographical
Autobiography

An autobiography is a biography written by its subject . The term was first used by the poet Robert Southey in 1809 in the English language Periodical publication Quarterly Review, but the form goes back to antiquity....
 works, Gide exposes to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation between the two sides of his personality, split apart by a strait-laced education and a narrow social moralism. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, even to the point of owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. His political activity is informed by the same ethos, as suggested by his repudiation of communism
Communism

Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarianism, classlessness, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general....
 after his 1936 voyage to the USSR.

Early life

Gide was born in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, France on 22 November 1869, in a middle-class Protestant family. His father was a Paris University
University of Paris

The historic University of Paris first appeared in the 12th century. In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous university . The university is often referred to as the Sorbonne or La Sorbonne after the collegiate institution founded about 1257 by Robert de Sorbon....
 professor of law and died in 1880. His uncle was the political economist Charles Gide
Charles Gide

Charles Gide was a leading France economics and history of economic thought. He was a professor at the University of Bordeaux, at Universit? de Montpellier, at Universit? de Paris and finally at Coll?ge de France....
.

Gide was brought up in isolated conditions in Normandy
Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the coast of France south of the English Channel between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands....
 and became a prolific writer at an early age, publishing his first novel, The Notebooks of Andre Walter (French: Les Cahiers d'André Walter), in 1891.

In 1893 and 1894 Gide traveled in northern Africa. Gide realized he was homosexual after an encounter with a boy prostitute in North Africa. He befriended Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
 in Paris, and in 1895 Gide and Wilde met in Algiers. There, Wilde had the impression that he had introduced Gide to homosexuality, but, in fact, Gide had already discovered this on his own.

The middle years

In 1895, after his mother's death, he married his cousin Madeleine Rondeaux but the marriage remained unconsummated. In 1896, he became mayor of La Roque-Baignard
La Roque-Baignard

La Roque-Baignard is a Communes of France in the Departments of France of Calvados in the Basse-Normandie Regions of France in northern France....
, a commune
Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative divisions in the France. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin Medieval commune, meaning a small gathering of people sharing a common life, from Latin communis, things held in common....
 in Normandy.

In 1901, Gide rented the property Maderia in St. Brelade's Bay and lived there while residing in Jersey
Jersey

The Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes the nearly uninhabited islands of the Minquiers, ?cr?hous, the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs....
. This period, from 1901-1907, is commonly seen as a period of apathy and unsettlement in his life.

In 1908, Gide helped found the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française
Nouvelle Revue Française

La Nouvelle Revue Fran?aise is a literary magazine founded in 1909 by Andr? Gide. In 1911, Gaston Gallimard became editor of the revue, which led to the founding of the publishing house, ?ditions Gallimard....
 (The New French Review). In 1916, Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret

Marc All?gret was a French screenwriter and film director.Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves All?gret....
, 16, became his lover. He was the son of Elie Allegret, best man at Gide's wedding. Of Allegret's five children, André Gide adopted Marc. The two eloped to London, in retribution for which his wife burned all his correspondence, "the best part of myself," as he was later to comment. In 1918, he met Dorothy Bussy
Dorothy Bussy

Dorothy Bussy , English novelist and translator....
, who was his friend for over thirty years and who would translate many of his works into English.

In the 1920s, Gide became an inspiration for writers like Albert Camus
Albert Camus

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born France author, Philosophy, and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in 1957. He is often associated with existentialism, but Camus refused this label....
 and Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre , commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre , was a French existentialism philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism....
. In 1923, he published a book on Fyodor Dostoyevsky; however, when he defended homosexuality in the public edition of Corydon
Corydon (book)

Corydon is the title of a collection of essays by Andr? Gide about homosexuality, named after Corydon . Parts of the text were separately published from 1911 to 1920, and the whole book appeared in its French original in France in 1924 and in the United States in 1950....
 (1924) he received widespread condemnation. He later considered this his most important work.

In 1923, he conceived a daughter, Catherine, with Elisabeth van Rysselberghe, a much younger woman, who was the daughter of his closest woman friend Maria Monnom, the wife of the Belgian neo-impressionist painter Théo van Rysselberghe
Théo van Rysselberghe

Th?o van Rysselberghe , was a Belgium neo-impressionism Painting, who played a pivotal role in the European art scene at the turn of the century....
. This would cause the only crisis in the long-standing and intense friendship between the two men. Gide had known Elisabeth since childhood. This was possibly his only sexual liaison with a woman and was brief in the extreme, but Catherine became his only descendant by blood. He liked to call Elisabeth "La Dame Blanche" (French: the White Lady). She eventually left her husband to move to Paris and manage the practical aspects of Gide's life (she had adjoining apartments built for each of them on the rue Vavin). She worshipped him, but evidently they no longer had a sexual relationship. Gide's legal wife Madeleine died in 1938. Later he used the background of his unconsummated marriage in his novel Et Nunc Manet in Te.

In 1924, he published an autobiography, If the seed dies (French: Si le grain ne meurt
Si le grain ne meurt

Si le grain ne meurt is the autobiography of the France writer Andr? Gide. Published in 1924, this work recounts the life of Gide since his childhood in Paris until his engagement with his cousin Madeleine Rondeaux, called Emmanu?le here, in 1895....
).

After 1925, he began to demand more humane conditions for criminals.

Africa

From July 1926 to May 1927, he travelled through the French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa

French Equatorial Africa was the federation of France colonial possessions in Middle Africa, extending northwards from the Congo River to the Sahara Desert....
 colony
Colony

In politics and in history, a colony is a Territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies....
 with his lover Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret

Marc All?gret was a French screenwriter and film director.Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves All?gret....
. He went successively to Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo

The Republic of the Congo , also known as Congo-Brazzaville or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda , and the Gulf of Guinea....
), Oubangui-Chari
Oubangui-Chari

Oubangui-Chari, or Ubangi-Shari, was a France territory in central Africa which later became the independent country of the Central African Republic on August 13, 1960....
 (now the Central African Republic
Central African Republic

The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the east, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west....
), briefly to Chad
Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west....
 and then to Cameroun
Cameroun

Cameroun was a French League of Nations mandate in central Africa, now constituting the majority of the territory of the Cameroon.Today, English speakers from Cameroon are known for a distinctive accent and signature rolling of r's as a French lingual flourish....
 before returning to France. He related his peregrinations in a journal called Travels in the Congo (French: Voyage au Congo) and Return from Chad (French: Retour du Tchad). In this published journal, he criticized the behavior of French business interests in the Congo and inspired reform. In particular, he strongly criticized the Large Concessions regime (French: régime des Grandes Concessions), i.e. a regime according to which part of the colony was conceded to French companies and where these companies could exploit all of the area's natural resource
Natural resource

Renewable resources Renewable resources are sometimes living resources,, which can restock themselves if used sustainably and not over- harvested....
s, in particular rubber
Rubber

Natural rubber is an elastomer?an Elasticity_ hydrocarbon polymer?that was originally derived from a milky colloidal suspension, or latex , found in the sap of some plants....
. He related for instance how natives were forced to leave their village during several weeks to collect rubber in the forest, and went as far as comparing their exploitation to slavery
Slavery

Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to Labor for another . Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive Remuneration in return for their labor....
. The book had important influence on anti-colonialism movements in France and helped re-evaluate the impact of colonialism
Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonization

Colonialism is the practice of creating Human settlements in lands other than the parent land. Historically, this has often involved killing or subjugating the indigenous population....
.

Russia

During the 1930s, he briefly became a communist
Communism

Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarianism, classlessness, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general....
, or more precisely, a fellow traveler (he never formally joined the Communist Party). As a distinguished writer sympathizing with the cause of communism, he was invited to tour the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 as a guest of the Soviet Union of Writers. The tour disillusioned him and he subsequently became quite critical of Soviet Communism. This criticism of Communism caused him to lose socialist
Socialism

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equality for all individuals, with a fair or Egalitarianism method of compensation....
 friends, especially when he made a clean break with it in Retour de L'U.R.S.S. in 1936. He was also a contributor to The God That Failed
The God that Failed

The God That Failed is a 1949 book which collects together six essays with the testimonies of a number of famous ex-Communism, who were writers and journalists....
.

The 1940s

Gide left France for Africa in 1942 and lived in Tunis
Tunis

Tunis is the Capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1 200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the municipal area....
 until the end of World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. In 1947, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" ....
.

Gide died on 19 February 1951. The Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
 placed his works on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1952.

Partial list of works

  • Les cahiers d'André Walter - 1891
  • Le traité du Narcisse - 1891
  • Les poésies d'André Walter - 1892
  • Le voyage d'Urien - 1893
  • La tentative amoureuse - 1893
  • Paludes - 1895
  • Réflexions sur quelques points de littérature - 1897
  • Les nourritures terrestres - 1897
  • Feuilles de route 1895-1896 - 1897
  • El Hadj
  • Le Prométhée mal enchaîné - 1899
  • Philoctète - 1899
  • Lettres à Angèle - 1900
  • De l'influence en littérature - 1900
  • Le roi Candaule - 1901
  • Les limites de l'art - 1901
  • L'immoraliste
    The Immoralist

    The Immoralist is a novel by Andr? Gide, published in France in 1902 as L'immoraliste.=Synopsis=In 1902, when Andr? Gide's The Immoralist was first published, it was considered shocking....
     - 1902 (translated by Richard Howard
    Richard Howard

    Richard Howard is a distinguished United States poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University, where he now teaches....
     as The Immoralist)
  • Saül - 1903
  • De l'importance du public - 1903
  • Prétextes - 1903
  • Amyntas - 1906
  • Le retour de l'enfant prodigue
    Le retour de l'enfant prodigue

    Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue is a short story by Andr? Gide. Gide wrote the story in early 1907, in less than two weeks.It is based on the Biblical parable of the prodigal son....
     - 1907
  • Dostoïevsky d'après sa correspondence - 1908
  • La porte étroite
    La porte étroite

    La Porte ?troite is a French novel written by Andr? Gide published in 1909. It is very sad and moving story which probes some of the complexities and terrors of adolescence and growing up....
     - 1909 (translated as Strait Is the Gate)
  • Oscar Wilde
    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
     - 1910
  • Nouveaux prétextes - 1911
  • Charles-Louis-Philippe - 1911
  • C. R. D. N. - 1911
  • Isabelle - 1911
  • Bethsabé - 1912
  • Souvenirs de la Cour d'Assises - 1914
  • Les caves du Vatican - 1914 (translated as Lafcadio's Adventures)
  • La marche Turque - 1914
  • La symphonie pastorale
    La Symphonie pastorale

    La symphonie pastorale is a 1946 in film French language motion picture drama directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Mich?le Morgan and Pierre Blanchar....
     - 1919
  • Corydon
    Corydon (book)

    Corydon is the title of a collection of essays by Andr? Gide about homosexuality, named after Corydon . Parts of the text were separately published from 1911 to 1920, and the whole book appeared in its French original in France in 1924 and in the United States in 1950....
     - 1920
  • Numquid et tu . . .? - 1922
  • Dostoïevsky - 1923
  • Incidences - 1924
  • Caractères - 1925
  • Les faux-monnayeurs
    The Counterfeiters (novel)

    The Counterfeiters is a 1925 novel by France author Andr? Gide, first published in Nouvelle Revue Fran?aise. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original and the copy, and what differentiates them – both in the external plot of the counterfeit gold coins and in the portrayal of the ch...
     - 1925 (translated as The Counterfeiters - 1927)
  • Si le grain ne meurt
    Si le grain ne meurt

    Si le grain ne meurt is the autobiography of the France writer Andr? Gide. Published in 1924, this work recounts the life of Gide since his childhood in Paris until his engagement with his cousin Madeleine Rondeaux, called Emmanu?le here, in 1895....
     - 1926 (translated as If It Die)
  • Le journal des faux-monnayeurs - 1926
  • Dindiki - 1927
  • Voyage au Congo - 1927
  • Le retour de Tchad - 1928
  • L'école des femmes - 1929
  • Essai sur Montaigne - 1929
  • Un esprit non prévenu - 1929
  • Robert - 1930
  • La séquestrée de Poitiers - 1930
  • L'affaire Redureau - 1930
  • Œdipe - 1931
  • Perséphone - 1934
  • Les nouvelles nourritures - 1935
  • Geneviève - 1936
  • Retour de l'U. R. S. S. - 1936
  • Retouches â mon retour de l'U. R. S. S. - 1937
  • Notes sur Chopin - 1938
  • Journal 1889-1939 - 1939
  • Découvrons Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux

    Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgium poet, writer and Painting who wrote in the French language. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, Travel literature, and art criticism....
     - 1941
  • Thésée - 1946
  • Le retour - 1946
  • Paul Valéry
    Paul Valéry

    Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Val?ry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath....
     - 1947
  • Le procès - 1947
  • L'arbitraire - 1947
  • Eloges - 1948
  • Littérature engagée - 1950


See also

  • Colonialism
    Colonialism

    Colonialism is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over Territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler or exploitation colony in which Indigenous people populations are direct rule, Population transfers, or Genocide....
  • List of books portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors


External links

  • in French
  • interface in French


  • Works by André Gide (public domain in Canada)