In 1921, René Maran became the first black writer to win the Goncourt Prize. He won a prize for his novel “Batouala”, a critical work on colonial racism, which sparked controversy and won him much enmity.
Short biography of René Maran – The writer René Maran was born on a boat when his parents left Guyana for Martinique, the November 5, 1887. He arrived in France at the age of seven. His parents, who left for Gabon, had sent him to Bordeaux. He started writing quite young, around 16 years old. At the Michel de Montaigne high school, René Maran met Félix Eboué, colonial administrator and future resistance fighter. His career pushes him to leave France to go to Africa and more precisely Oubangui-Chari, the future Central African Republic. In this French colony, he became an overseas administrator. It was there that he found the inspiration to write his first and most famous novel, “Batouala“. Back in Paris, he had a relationship with Paulette Nardal in the 1920s. He subsequently married Camille Rosalie Berthelot in 1927. Together, they adopted a daughter, Paulette Cernard. René Maran died on May 9, 1960 at the age of 72 in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. His body is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.
The publication of “Batouala” is notable for René Maran since he tackles, from the preface, which remains in our memories, the taboo of the excesses of French colonialism, giving rise to lively controversies. Here is an excerpt from the preface in question: “Civilization, civilization, pride of Europeans, and their mass grave of innocent people. You are building your kingdom on corpses. (…) You are the force that takes precedence over law. You are not not a torch, but a fire. Everything you touch, you consume. ” Following the publication of his book, René Maran had to resign from the colonial administration. His novel “Batouala”, meanwhile, has been banned from publication in Africa.
The story of “Batouala” focuses on the life of a black tribe of Ubangi-Chari, headed by a warrior and religious leader named Batouala. Throughout his work, René Maran strives to demonstrate the complex and often violent relationship between blacks and whites, and the racism weighing on Africans under the authority of colonial institutions. He denounces the sale of women, the living conditions of colonized Africans and their famine, as well as the attitude of the settlers towards them. A remark that caused a scandal at the time, especially when René Maran was awarded the Goncourt.
The announcement of his consecration by the Goncourt Prize sparked an uproar in the French press of the Roaring Twenties. Le Petit Parisien described this victory in particular in these terms, unimaginable today: “Mr. René Maran, colonial administrator, domiciled in Fort-Archambault, two days’ march from Lake Chad, in the midst of blacks who resemble him like brothers, yesterday received the Goncourt prize. (….) Since 1903, when the first Goncourt prize was awarded, it is the first time that blacks play and win. (…) His negro quality (…) ) seduced the ten of the Goncourt Academy in love with color and strangeness. “
René Maran maintained correspondence throughout his life and was particularly admirer of his friends Félix Eboué, Philéas Lebesgue and Manoel Gahisto. Very patriotic, René Maran continued his life in Paris, where he wrote many other novels, but also poems. The writer also attended the salon of Paulette Nardal in Clamart, where he was able to meet Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire or even Jean Price Mars. Considered a precursor of the movement called “negritude”, he found it difficult to understand the movement, according to Lilyan Kesteloot, who said of him: “He tended to see it as racism more than a new form of humanism. . He wanted himself, above all and with obstinacy ‘a man like the others’ “.
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