Andre Malraux

From Philosopedia

Malraux, André (3 November 1901 - 23 November 1976)

Malraux, a writer, freedom fighter, and a major French man of letters, was born in Paris, France.

He studied Asian language at the Ecole des Langues Orientales. Not completing his studies, he traveled to Asia as a young man, becoming a noted critic of French colonial rule in Indochina.

He co-founded the Young Annam League and founded the newspaper, Indochina in Chains.

His first novel, The Temptation of the West, was published in 1926, followed by The Conquerors (1928), The Royal Way (1930), Man's Fate (1934), Man's Hope (1938), The Psychology of Art (1947-1949), The Voices of Silence (1953), The Fallen Oaks (1971); and Lazarus (1977). Of these, La Condition humaine (Man’s Fate), was the one that won the 1933 Goncourt literary prize. In that work, according to Vivient I. Thweatt, "the individuality of Malraux’s hero is integrated into the ‘virile fraternity’ of the Communist cause; and La Condition humaine effects a syncretism of communism and existentialism that is similar in many respects to Montaigne’s syncretism of Christianity and classical philosophy. At the same time, Malraux’s work presents a study of the degrees and variety of authentic action, set against the panorama of the 1927 repression of Communist insurgency by the Kuomintang."

After joining archeological expeditions to Iran and Afghanistan in the 1930s, Malraux cofounded the International Association of Writers for the Defense of Culture. During the Spanish Civil War, Malraux flew on missions as a pilot for the Republicans and was wounded twice. He also traveled to the United States to try to raise money for the Republican cause.

"Man defines himself by what he does, not by what he dreams," he wrote. His freethought is shown by his view,

• To the absurd myths of God and an immortal soul, the modern world in its radical impotence has only succeeded in opposing the ridiculous myths of science and progress.

A fictional account of his experiences, (L'Espoir), was published in 1937, and a movie followed in 1939.

During World War II, Malraux joined the French Army, was captured in 1940 during the Western Offensive, escaped and joined the French Resistance. In 1944, he was captured by the Gestapo and, following a mock execution, was rescued by the Resistance. He then joined the Free French and fought at Strasbourg and the takeover of Stuttgart. He was awarded the Medal of the Resistance, the Croix de Guerre, and the British Distinguished Service Order. Gen. Charles De Gaulle appointed Malraux his minister of information in 1945-1946.

Under Charles DeGaulle, Malraux served (1945, 1958) as minister of information, and in 1959 he became DeGaulle’s minister of cultural affairs (1960- 1967). His arbitrariness irritated his former left-wing allies, despite his decision to persuade Marc Chagall to paint the ceiling of the Opéra Garnier. Similarly, his independence irritated the Gaullists, as when he resisted pressure to have an iconoclastic play by Jean Genet banned. “One must always choose freedom, even when it has dirty hands,” he said.

In Signé Malraux (1996), French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard described how Malraux was self-taught but falsely said he had studied at the École du Louvre. Or how, although brought up in a grocery shop, he had falsely told his rich first wife, Clara, that his mother had belonged to the haute bourgeoisie.

In 1923 when he and Clara went to Indochina to steal Khmer statues, he was arrested, then expelled, then returned to found an anti-colonialist newspaper.

Asia provided the setting of his early novels, in which, as described by The Economist (30 November 1996), “characters are transcended by the cause they choose to kill and die for.”

In Spain’s civil war, Malraux commanded a squadron in the Republican air force. In 1945 he changed from his former pro-Marxism to embrace Charles de Gaulle but was fascinated by revolutionary leaders who placed themselves beyond the pale of social convention, such as T. E. Lawrence or Mao Zedong. His companion was the novelist Louise de Vilmorin. In 1996,

Malraux’s remains were transferred to the Pantheon, France’s final resting place for illustrious men (and one woman, Marie Curie). President Jacques Chirac, on that occasion, described Malraux as “neither of the right, nor of the left, but of France.”

Malraux's autobiography, Anti-Memoirs, was published in 1967.

{CE; EU, Vivien Thweatt; FFRF; PA}