André Malraux (November 3, 1901 - November 23, 1976) was a French author, adventurer and statesman preeminent in the world of French politics and culture during his lifetime.

Malraux was born in Paris. His parents separated when he was a child and eventually divorced. He was raised by his mother, Berthe Lamy, and maternal grandmother, Adrienne Lamy. His father, a stockbroker, committed suicide in 1930.

Malraux studied Oriental languages at the École des Langues Orientales but did not graduate. At the age of 21 he left for Cambodia with his new wife, Clara Goldschmidt, a German Jewish heiress whom he married in 1921 and divorced in 1946. (They had a daughter, Florence, born 1933, who married the filmmaker Alain Resnais.) He was arrested and almost imprisoned for trying to smuggle out a bas relief from the temple Banteay Srei.

He became highly critical of the French colonial authorities in Indochina and in 1925 helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded the newspaper Indochina in Chains.

On his return to France he published his first novel, The Temptation of the West (1926). This was followed by The Conquerors (1928), The Royal Way (1930) and Man's Fate (French: La Condition Humaine) (1934). For the latter, a powerful novel about the defeat of a communist regime in Shanghai and the choices facing the losers, he won the 1933 Prix Goncourt of literature.

In the 1930s Malraux also joined archeological expeditions to Iran and Afghanistan. He founded the International Association of Writers for the Defense of Culture with Louis Aragon.

During the Spanish Civil War Malraux served as a pilot for the Republican forces. He was wounded twice in effort to stop the Falangists' takeover of Madrid. He also toured the United States in an attempt to raise funds for the Republicans. A novel about his experiences, Man's Hope, appeared in 1938.

On the outbreak of the Second World War Malraux joined the French Army and served in a tank unit. He was captured in 1940 during the Western Offensive but he escaped and joined the French Resistance. He was captured by the Gestapo in 1944 and even though he underwent a mock execution he was still alive when he was rescued by members of the resistance. He ended up leading Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defense of Strasbourg and takeover of Stuttgart. He was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance, the Croix de Guerre, and the British Distinguished Service Order.

During the war he worked on a long novel, The Struggle Against the Angel, the manuscript of which was destroyed by the Gestapo upon his capture in 1944. An surviving introductory section, The Walnut Trees of Altenberg, was published after the war.

He had two sons by Josette Clotis: Pierre-Gauthier (1940-1961) and Vincent (1943-1961). Josette died in 1944 while Malraux was fighting in Alsace, having slipped while boarding a train. Both their sons would die in a single automobile accident, seventeen years later.

After the war General Charles De Gaulle appointed Malraux as his minister of information (1945-1946). In the 1950s he wrote about art and aesthetics, creating the concept of the pan-cultural "Museum Without Walls" in such books as Voices of Silence. He again became a minister for information in 1958, and France's first Minister of Culture from 1960 to 1969. During his term, he created the famous maisons de la culture throughout France, and worked to preserve national monuments.

In 1948 Malraux married his cousin Marie-Madeleine Lioux, a concert pianist who was the widow of his half-brother, Roland Malraux. They separated in 1966.

An international Malraux Society was founded in the United States in 1968.

During the 1960's and 1970's, he wrote books about Picasso and de Gaulle, as well as an autobiography (Antimemoires). Malraux's last political engagement was in support of Bangladesh in its 1971 secession from Pakistan.

At the end of his life he lived with the writer Louise Leveque de Vilmorin. He wrote a moving memoir of his own final illness, Lazarus, in 1975. André Malraux died in Paris on November 23, 1976.

Bibliography includes

• La Tentation de l'Occident, 1926 (The Temptation of the West, 1926)
• Les Conquérants, 1928 (The Conquerors, 1928)
• La Voie royale, 1930 (The Royal Way, 1930)
• La Condition humaine, 1933 (Man's Fate, 1934)
• Le Temps du mépris, 1935 (Days of Wrath)
• L'Espoir, 1937 (Man's Hope, 1938)
• La Psychologie de l'art, 1947-1949 (The Psychology of Art)
• Les Voix du silence, 1951 (The Voices of Silence, 1953)
• Antimémoires, 1967 (Anti-Memoirs - autobiography)
• Des Chênes qu'on abat, 1971 (Felled Oaks / The Fallen Oaks)

External link

• A biography (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/malraux.htm)

• An article describing Malraux as something of a fabulist (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/mar05/malraux.htm)

• Malraux's early, surrealist writings (http://www.fuguestatepress.com/malraux.html)

Book

• Andre Malraux: A Biography(1997) by Curtis Cate (ISBN 208066795)
• Malraux : A Life(2005) by Oliver Todd (ISBN 0375407022)bg:Андре Малро

de:André Malraux es:André Malraux eo:André MALRAUX fr:André Malraux ja:アンドレ・マルロー pl:André Malraux