Alain-Fournier

Alain -Fournier ( Henri -Alban Fournier actually; born October 3, 1886 in La Chapelle- d'Angillon, Centre, † September 22, 1914 in Les Éparges at Verdun ) was a French writer.

Life and work

Alain -Fournier (as he - without a first name - as the author called it) was born in Berry in central France, the first child of a teacher married couple. He spent his childhood with his three years younger sister Isabel in the country, with 12 he was sent to a " board" ( a private boarding school ) in Paris, because it then there visit a prestigious high school, the Lycée Voltaire, and later as a scientist should work. At 15, however, he moved to the Gymnasium of Brest, which led preparatory classes for the French Naval Academy, because he had decided to become a naval officer. At 16, he gave up this idea again and finished with 17 a high school in Bourges.

Then, in October 1903, he attended the preparatory classes for the elite high school for teachers (ENS ) at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, near Paris. Here he became friends with Jacques Rivière, with whom he began to take an interest in literature together and operate ( and in 1908 his brother was ).

On Ascension in 1905, with almost 19, he had a fleeting encounter with a young woman, Yvonne de Quièvrecourt into which he fell rapturously. But he lost it after another brief meeting of the eyes, and learned two years later, disappointed that they had gotten married. His hopes of a place to study at the ENS were not fulfilled: after a third year preparatory class, now at the Lycée Louis -le- Grand, he had for the second time unlucky in the entrance examination ( concours ) and had his goal of a career as a high school or even a university professor to give up.

While his friend Rivière, who had also not received a place to study at the ENS, went to Bordeaux to drop an exam at the university, with which he could be a high school teacher as an employee, graduated Alain -Fournier first ( 1907-09 ) military service. While on vacation, he visited the Sanctuary of Lourdes, who impressed him.

The end of 1907, he published a first longer text under the pseudonym Alain- Fournier: the essay Le corps de la femme ( the wife ' The body ). 1909, towards the end of his military service, he tried to store in order to be Staff English teacher can check for Licentia docendi. However, Apparently he was ill-prepared and failed.

Back in Paris, he was from April 1910 to 1912 freelance as a literary critic for the newspaper Paris -Journal. During this time, he had a very checkered relationship with the milliner Jeanne Bruneau. The end of 1910, he met the 13 years older novelist Charles Peguy know who tried to bring him back to the Catholic piety of his childhood. Through him, him not too labor intensive position of a private secretary at the banker Claude Casimir Périer was mediated, which he held from 1912.

During these years he wrote the novel that would make him famous: Le grand Meaulnes (The Great Meaulnes ). This first appeared in five installments from July to November 1913 in the journal La Nouvelle Revue Française young, at the Rivière -law since last year was editorial secretary. In the autumn he came out as a book. Le grand Meaulnes is a work of art actually not a huge success, because plot and the characters are not always consistent, and the attempt Alain- Fournier, with several changes of the narrative perspective to achieve the level of the novel technique of time, does not succeed quite sufficient experience and routine. Nevertheless, the novel is very catchy and touching, because the visibly strong identification of the author with its three main characters transmits to the reader. The book's success was immediately considerable, there was short-listed for the Prix Goncourt.

In 1913 a reunion with his great love Yvonne de Q., which now had two children, Alain -Fournier could console themselves with the fact that he had recently boast a very attractive lovers: the famous actress Madame Simone, wife of his boss Casimir - Périer. This inspired him as well as to a new, but unfinished novel entitled Colombe Blanchet ( which was printed posthumously ).

As on 1 August 1914 the First World War broke out, Alain -Fournier was drafted as a reserve lieutenant. In the fighting around Éparges, south of Verdun, he returned on 22 September with his people by a patrol not and remained missing. Only in 1991 his remains were thanks to the identification tag in a mass grave identified and reburied at the cemetery of Saint- Remy la Calonne.

The early death of Alain- Fournier was not indifferent to the enormous proliferation, the Grand Meaulnes in the interwar period, and afterwards even learned where he became a cult book of generations of young readers. In Germany, he was also read a lot and is still available in different transmissions at several publishers.