Albert Cohen (novelist)
Albert Cohen | |
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Cohen in 1909 | |
Born | Abraham Albert Cohen August 16, 1895 Corfu, Greece |
Died | October 17, 1981(1981-10-17) (aged 86) Geneva, Switzerland |
Occupation | Novelist |
Nationality | Swiss |
Abraham Albert Cohen (August 16, 1895 – October 17, 1981) was a Greek-born Romaniote Jewish Swiss novelist who wrote in French. He worked as a civil servant for various international organizations, such as the International Labour Organization. He became a Swiss citizen in 1919.[1]
Biography
Abraham Albert Cohen (Greek: Αβραάμ Αλβέρτος Κοέν) was born in Corfu, Greece, in 1895, to Greek Jewish parents. Albert's parents, who owned a soap factory, moved to Marseille, France, when he was a child.[2] Albert Cohen discusses this period in his novel Le Livre de ma mère (The Book of My Mother). He studied at a private Catholic school. In 1904, he started high school at Lycée Thiers, where he met and started a lifelong friendship with Marcel Pagnol,[3] and graduated in 1913.
In 1914, he left Marseille for Geneva, Switzerland, and enrolled in law school. He graduated from law school in 1917 and enrolled in literature school[clarification needed] in 1917, where he remained until 1919. In 1919, he became a Swiss citizen. That same year he married Elisabeth Brocher, who in 1921 gave birth to their daughter, Myriam. In 1924, his wife died of cancer. In 1925, Albert Cohen became director of Revue Juive (The Jewish Review), a periodical whose writers included Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. From 1926 to 1931, he served as a civil servant in Geneva. In 1933, he married his second wife, Marianne Goss.
During the German occupation, in 1940, Cohen fled to Bordeaux, then to London. The Jewish Agency for Palestine then made him responsible for establishing contacts with exiled governments. On January 10, 1943, Cohen's mother died in Marseille. That same year, he met his future third wife, Bella Berkowich. In 1944, he became an attorney for the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. In 1947, Cohen returned to Geneva. In 1957, he turned down the post of Israeli Ambassador in order to pursue his literary career.
He died in Geneva at the age of 86 and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Veyrier, near Geneva.
Cohen's literature
Through four different books, Cohen's fiction can be considered as one long autobiographical fiction. It is the story of the radiant Solal – Cohen's double – a handsome and successful civil servant of the League of Nations whose charismatic identity is a constant struggle between his Jewish roots and his social status.
His masterpiece, Belle du Seigneur, originally included the novel that was later published as Les Valeureux. Belle du Seigneur is called "the book of love", and tells Solal's passionate, cruel yet realistic love affair with Ariane Deume, a married non-Jewish woman. In 1968, the novel received the French Academy award. Since then, the novel has been one of the biggest sellers of the prestigious Gallimard White Collection.[4] In 2022, Cohen's works were published in the prestigious Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.
Novels, plays, autobiographical works
- Paroles juives - (1921) (Jewish Words)
- Ézéchiel - (1927) - play
- Solal - (1930) translated as Solal of the Solals - (1933)
- Mangeclous - (1938) translated as Nailcruncher - (1940)
- Le Livre de ma mère - (1954) translated as Book of my Mother - (1997)
- Belle du Seigneur - (1968) Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française translated under the same title - (1995)
- Les Valeureux - (1970)
- Ô vous, frères humains - (1972) (O Humans, My Brothers)
- Carnets - (1978, 1979) (Notes)
See also
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes Belle du Seigneur
References
- ^ "Cohen, Albert" from Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century, "Further references, related titles" by David Coward. Bookrags, 18 June 2010.
- ^ "America's Albert Cohen Moment Is the Greek-born French Jewish author and diplomat a hapless romantic or a man with a message for our times?". Tablet. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
- ^ "Pagnol and Friends". Archived from the original on 2017-09-09. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
- ^ "Albert Cohen", everything2.com, 18 June 2010. Accessed 21 April 2022.
External links
- Publications by and about Albert Cohen (novelist) in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
- (in French) Atelier Albert Cohen
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- 1915 Paul Acker
- 1916 Louis de Blois [fr]
- 1917 Charles Géniaux [fr]
- 1918 Camille Mayran [fr]
- 1919 Pierre Benoit
- 1920 André Corthis
- 1921 Pierre Villetard [fr]
- 1922 Francis Carco
- 1923 Alphonse de Châteaubriant
- 1924 Émile Henriot
- 1925 François Duhourcau
- 1926 François Mauriac
- 1927 Joseph Kessel
- 1928 Jean Balde [fr]
- 1929 André Demaison [fr]
- 1930 Jacques de Lacretelle
- 1931 Henri Pourrat
- 1932 Jacques Chardonne
- 1933 Roger Chauviré
- 1934 Paule Régnier
- 1935 Albert Touchard
- 1936 Georges Bernanos
- 1937 Guy de Pourtalès
- 1938 Jean de La Varende
- 1939 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 1940 Édouard Peisson [fr]
- 1941 Robert Bourget-Pailleron
- 1942 Jean Blanzat
- 1943 Joseph-Henri Louwyck [fr]
- 1944 Pierre Lagarde [fr]
- 1945 Marc Blancpain [fr]
- 1946 Jean Orieux [fr]
- 1947 Philippe Hériat
- 1948 Yves Gandon [fr]
- 1949 Yvonne Pagniez
- 1950 Joseph Jolinon
- 1951 Bernard Barbey [fr]
- 1952 Henri Castillou [fr]
- 1953 Jean Hougron
- 1954 Pierre Moinot / Paul Mousset [fr]
- 1955 Michel de Saint Pierre [fr]
- 1956 Paul Guth
- 1957 Jacques de Bourbon Busset
- 1958 Henri Queffélec
- 1959 Gabriel d'Aubarède
- 1960 Christian Murciaux [fr]
- 1961 Phạm Văn Ký [fr; vi]
- 1962 Michel Mohrt
- 1963 Robert Margerit
- 1964 Michel Droit
- 1965 Jean Husson [fr]
- 1966 François Nourissier
- 1967 Michel Tournier
- 1968 Albert Cohen
- 1969 Pierre Moustiers
- 1970 Bertrand Poirot-Delpech
- 1971 Jean d'Ormesson
- 1972 Patrick Modiano
- 1973 Michel Déon
- 1974 Kléber Haedens
- 1975
- 1976 Pierre Schoendoerffer
- 1977 Camille Bourniquel
- 1978 Pascal Jardin
- 1979 Henri Coulonges
- 1980 Louis Gardel
- 1981 Jean Raspail
- 1982 Vladimir Volkoff
- 1983 Liliane Guignabodet [fr]
- 1984 Jacques-Francis Rolland [fr]
- 1985 Patrick Besson
- 1986 Pierre-Jean Rémy
- 1987 Frédérique Hébrard
- 1988 François-Olivier Rousseau
- 1989 Geneviève Dormann
- 1990 Paule Constant
- 1991 François Sureau
- 1992 Franz-Olivier Giesbert
- 1993 Philippe Beaussant
- 1994 Frédéric Vitoux
- 1995 Alphonse Boudard
- 1996 Calixthe Beyala
- 1997 Patrick Rambaud
- 1998 Anne Wiazemsky
- 1999 François Taillandier / Amélie Nothomb
- 2000 Pascal Quignard
- 2001 Éric Neuhoff
- 2002 Marie Ferranti
- 2003 Jean-Noël Pancrazi
- 2004 Bernard du Boucheron
- 2005 Henriette Jelinek [fr]
- 2006 Jonathan Littell
- 2007 Vassilis Alexakis
- 2008 Marc Bressant [fr]
- 2009 Pierre Michon
- 2010 Éric Faye [fr]
- 2011 Sorj Chalandon
- 2012 Joël Dicker
- 2013 Christophe Ono-dit-Biot [fr]
- 2014 Adrien Bosc [fr]
- 2015 Hédi Kaddour / Boualem Sansal
- 2016 Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre
- 2017 Daniel Rondeau
- 2018 Camille Pascal
- 2019 Laurent Binet
- 2020 Étienne de Montety
- 2021 François-Henri Désérable
- 2022 Giuliano da Empoli