Maran, Renee

Rene Maran was born on November 5, 1887 on a ship on which his parents, Leon-Ermenezhild Maran (1864-1911) and Marie-Corina Maran (1865-1915), nee Lagrander ^[3] , sailed from Cayenne in French Guiana to Fort de France in Martinique . The metric of the future writer shows a different date - November 8, 1887, since the ship arrived at the port three days after its birth. Three years later, the family moved to Gabon , where his father was offered a post in the colonial administration.

In 1894, Rene Maran was placed in a boarding house at the Lyceum in Balance . From 1897 to 1906, he studied at the Lyceum of Michel Montaigne in Bordeaux , where he met Felix Eboue , the future high-ranking colonial official who organized the Resistance Movement in French Equatorial Africa (FEA).

In 1909, Rene Maran received a law degree and made his debut in the poetry collection House of Happiness in Leon Boke's magazine The Watch Tower ( French: Le Beffroi ), which was published in Lille . In 1910 he entered the civil service, becoming an official of the fourth class of the colonial administration in Ubangi Shari (now the Central African Republic ) ^[4] . There he met with his father, who retired six months ago and soon moved to Bordeaux. After the death of his father in 1911, Rene Maran had financial difficulties, as he had to financially support his mother and two younger brothers.

On the advice of Phileas Lebesgue in 1912, he began writing the novel Batuala, which he dedicated to his friend, translator Manuel Gaisto. The novel was published by Alben Michel in 1921. All possible assistance in his publication was provided by Manuel Gaisto and poet Henri de Rainier ^[5] . In the preface, Maran sharply criticized some aspects of the colonial policy of France, turning to all French writers. For this reason, the government banned the distribution of the book in the colonies. In the same year, the author received the Goncourt Prize . Five members of the jury voted for the Batuala novel. The other five preferred the "Wedding Song" ( Fr. L'Epithalame ) by Jacques Chardonnay . Rene Maran won thanks to the double vote of the chairman of the jury Gustave Jeffroy ^[6] and became the first black laureate of the Goncourt Prize. Pierre Mac-Orlan with the book Cavalier Elsa ( French La Cavalière Elsa ) and Georges Imann with the book Nocturnes ( French Les nocturnes ) also entered the final round.

At the end of 1924, Rene Maran resigned as a deputy of the third class of civil service. Moving from Ubanga to Paris , he became a professional writer and journalist on the radio. In 1927 he married Camille Berthelot (1894-1977). Childless spouses adopted a girl who, having married, took a double surname, and became Poletta Michel-Maran ^[7] .

In the 1930s, Rene Maran often visited the Poett Nardal literary salon, where he met with the writers Leopold Sengor , Aime Cather , Jean Pris Mar and the politician Gaston Monnerville ^[8] . He advised the founders of negro to avoid extremes. The writer himself was modest and believed that harmony could be achieved in the life of the entire French Empire through the mixing of races ^[9] . He respected the history of the French, regardless of the color of their skin, was a patriot of France and advocated equal opportunities for all its citizens.

Since 1937, they began to pay him a scholarship from the Fund "Intercolonial Service" ( French Service intercolonial ) for the fact that he commissioned the French Ministry of the Colonies to edit articles that were then sent to the newspaper for free. Rene Maran continued to work during the occupation of France during the Second World War . He denied all allegations of collaboration and in 1942 received from the French Academy the Big Brockett-Gonin Prize, issued, in particular, for outstanding moral qualities. During the Second World War , remaining in the occupied territory, he avoided internment. Rene Maran was unkind to the initiative of Felix Eboue , one of the organizers of the Gaullist Resistance Movement in French Equatorial Africa . He believed that it was not the African natives who were to defend the French, but, on the contrary, the French - the natives. In 1949, François Cornuu-Gentil , High Commissioner of French Equatorial Africa, decided to pay him a lifelong pension of 100,000 francs annually - in recognition of his recognition of literary works on French Equatorial Africa. However, in 1953, the successor to the commissioner overturned this decision ^[4] .

In the last years of his life, the writer conducted social activities related to the problems of racial discrimination. He took part in the First World Congress of Black Writers and Artists, held in Paris in 1956, as well as the Second Congress in Rome in 1959. He maintained friendly relations with a black American writer and diplomat .

Rene Maran died on May 9, 1960. The cause of death, according to his grandson Bernard Michel, was a heart attack ^[7] . He was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery, along with other laureates of the Goncourt Prize - Marguerite Duras , Simone de Beauvoir and Lucien Bodard ^[10] .

The first attempts at Rene Marana pen date back to the time of study at the Lyceum. In 1909, 1912, 1922 and 1935, he published four collections of poems - “The House of Happiness”, “Inner Life”, marked by the strong influence of symbolism , “A calm face: stanzas” and “Beautiful Images”. The fifth - "Book of Memories" (1958) - was the result. In it, the author collected all the best of what was written. The literary critic Selim Lander criticized the author’s poetic works, citing as an example those that were presented in 1953 as the basis for the acceptance of Rene Maran in the International Academy of French Culture (in particular, the poem “Mother”). Ironically, the critic reacted to the literary preferences of the writer ^[4] .

In the history of literature, Rene Maran is best known as a prose writer. He wrote informative animalistic books intended primarily for children and youth, in which he colorfully described African nature and condemned animal cruelty . These are “Juma, the dog of the jungle” (1927), “The Book of the Jungle” (1934), “Beasts of the Jungle” (1941), “Elephant Mbala” (1947) and “Baboon Bakuya” (1953). The writer also has two almost autobiographical novels, “Rigid Heart” (started around 1912 and published only once in 1931) and “Man Like Everyone”, which, renamed and revised, was published three times: for the first time in 1927 under the title “Diary without dates” ", The second time around 1932 under the name" Protection of Love ", and the third time in 1947 under the current name. The protagonists of the novel are the black-skinned Antillean Jean Venes and the white-skinned Frenchwoman Andre-Mariella (in previous versions - Adige and Urika). The author himself claimed that he wrote them at the wrong time. As Franz Omar Fanon writes in the journalistic book “Black Skin, White Masks” about Jean Venes: “This is a European. But he is black, therefore he is a Negro. This is a contradiction. He does not understand people of his race, and white-skinned people do not understand him ” ^[11] .

Duality is inherent in Rene Maran himself. As a writer and journalist, he fought for the recognition of the equality of black people in French society, opposed racism, oppressed the colonized peoples and at the same time proclaimed the idea of ​​the humanistic mission of France, defended the correctness and progressiveness of assimilative colonial policy. In his novels on African themes, he described the difficult relationship between the "black" and "white" compatriots. Rene Maran was a patriot of France and, despite some remarks made in correspondence with Phileas Lebesgue , described the life of the “great French”, including those who discovered the lands of the future French colonial empire. In correspondence, he often quoted his three best friends, Felix Eboue , Phileas Lebesgue and Manuel Gaisto.

The most famous work of the writer was Batuala, the first French-language novel about African natives, written by a black author. In 1921, Rene Maran was awarded the Goncourt Prize and then, immediately after the publication of the novel, he fell under the avalanche of criticism and slanderous accusations in the French press. It was not so much the book that provoked the annoyance as the preface, which condemned not the individual colonial officials, but the entire colonial administration of French Equatorial Africa.

On January 25, 1922, Rene Trautmann published an article in the newspaper National Action ( Fr. L'Action nationale ) accusing Rene Maran of “racism, imposture and ingratitude,” and addressed the protagonist of the novel, the leader Batuale, with these words : “But, Batuala, we know your pattern of a happy life - to rob, torment, kill or enslave all your neighbors, whoever they are. That’s the summit of your happiness, you good blacks of Central Africa. ” Rene Trautmann put forward his division of the black race into "blacks", that is, those who have not yet known the "good of French colonialism", and the "blacks" who have been blessed by it ^[9] . Leon Boke stood up in defense of the author of the Batuala, writing in the preface to The Little King of Chimeria (1924) that Rene Maran was completely assimilated in French culture, although he was African in origin.

The Batuala novel entered the school literature program in Senegal and the Republic of Congo after independence. In France - since 2002 ^[12] .

Poetry

• The House of Happiness ( French: La maison du bonheur 1909).
• "Inner Life" ( Fr. La vie intérieure 1912).
• The Book of Memoirs ( Fr. Le livre du souvenir 1958).

Prose

• Batuala ( French Batouala 1921).
• The Little King of Chimerie ( Fr. Le petit roi de Chimérie 1924).
• "Juma, the dog of the jungle" ( fr. Djouma, chien de brousse ... 1927).
• “Journal without a date” ( French Journal sans date 1927).
• “A heavy heart” ( Fr. Le cœur serré 1931).
• “The Man Who Is Waiting” ( Fr. L'homme qui attend 1936).
• “Pain of the heart” ( Fr. Peines de cœur 1944).
• “Man is like everyone else” ( French Un homme pareil aux autres 1947).
• The Elephant Mbala ( Fr. Mbala, l'éléphant 1947).
• The Baboon of Bakuya ( Fr. Bacouya, le cynocéphale 1953).

Essays

• “Black asepsis!” ( Fr. Asepsie noire! 1931).
• The Golden Sand of Chad ( French: Le Tchad de sable et d'or 1931).
• “French Equatorial Africa: Lands and Future Races” ( French Afrique Équatoriale Française: terres et races d'avenir 1937).
• Livingstone and the Exploration of Africa ( Fr. Livingstone et l'exploration de l'Afrique 1938).
• “Brazz and the Creation of French Equatorial Africa” ( French Brazza et la fondation de l'AEF 1941).
• "Pioneers of the empire" ( French Les pionniers de l'empire 1943-1955).
• "Savornian de Brazza" ( Fr. Savorgnan de Brazza 1951).
• The Beasts of the Jungle ( Fr. Bêtes de la brousse 1952).
• "Felix Eboue, a great servant and faithful servant" ( Fr. Félix Éboué, grand commis et loyal serviteur, 1885-1944 1957).
• "Bertrand du Gueslin, sword of the king" ( Fr. Bertrand du Guesclin, l'épée du roi 1960).

• Keith Cameron. René Maran . - Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985 .-- 176 p. - ISBN 9780805766042 .
• John Alfred Dennis. The René Maran story: the life and times of a black Frenchman, colonial administrator, novelist and social critic, 1887-1960 . - Thesis, Ph.D .: Stanford University, 1986.- 542 p. - ISBN 9780805766042 .

• Rene Maran // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
• Rene Maran (neopr.) . Literary Encyclopedia 1929-1939 . - Encyclopedic article about Ren Maran. (inaccessible link)
• Steve Puig. René Maran (neopr.) . Portraits D'Îles. - Biography of Rene Marana. (fr.)
• René Maran was a great French writer (unopened) (inaccessible link) . African American Registry. - Rene Maran is a famous French writer. Archived on November 5, 2013. (eng.)
• René Maran - Livres, citations, photos et vidéos (neopr.) . Babelio.com. - Rene Maran. Biography, quotes, photos and videos. (fr.)

• Damas, Leon Gontran
• Zhuminer, Bertin