User:Cameron64/André Lafon

André Lafon (April 17, 1883 – May 5, 1915) was a French poet and novelist from Bordeaux.

A member of the Lost Generation, closely linked to François Mauriac, Jean de La Ville de Mirmont and Martial-Piéchaud, in 1912 he became the first recipient of the Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française.

Biography
Born into an established family from Blaye, André Lafon completed his secondary schooling in Bordeaux before returning to his parents' home in Blaye. The tranquil and sunny atmosphere of that estuary city inspired his early poems. While working there as a supervisor at a middle school, he devoted his limited free time and evenings to studying, earning a certificate in elementary education.

In 1908, his first collection of poems, Poèmes provinciaux (Provincial Poems), was published by Beffroi, Paris. In 1911, by which time he was living in Paris, a second collection, La Maison pauvre (The Poor House) was published by Temps présent, Paris. On the recommendation of François Mauriac, he obtained a position as supervisor, and later as prefect of study, at a Catholic middle school in Neuilly, just west of Paris.

His first novel, L’Élève Gilles (Gilles, the Student) (Perrin) received the first Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française. The novel is a beautifully written story, largely autobiographical, in which the preadolescent narrator is abruptly sent from his parents' home in a city to live with a widowed great-aunt on her vineyard. Stunned by the beauty of the countryside, he spends much time alone in the garden. After a few weeks, he is enrolled in a local boys' boarding school, where he struggles to make friends and cope with feelings of abandonment. His parents are traveling for the sake of his father's precarious health.

In 1956, the novel was republished with a preface by François Mauriac.

In 1914, André Lafon published a second novel, La maison sur la rive (The House on the Riverbank).

In 1915, he received the prix Archon-Despérouses.

Despite his delicate health, André Lafon was judged fit for military service when war was declared in 1914. An ambulance attendant, he contracted scarlet fever and died at Saint-Nicolas Hospital in Bordeaux in 1915.

François Mauriac dedicated an essay,Vie et Mort d’un poète (Life and Death of a Poet) to his close friend. In his preface to L’Élève Gilles, he wrote: "We would be searching French literature in vain for a young person as identified with nature as was André Lafon."

Works

 * 1908: Les Poèmes provinciaux, Paris, Éditions du Beffroi.
 * 1911: La Maison pauvre, Paris, Éditions du Temps présent.
 * 1912: L’Élève Gilles, Paris, Librairie académique Perrin.
 * 1914: La Maison sur la rive, Paris, Librairie académique Perrin.

In 1987, Editions Ausone, in Blaye, republished L'Élève Gilles, along with L'élève André by Michel Suffran with illustrations by Jean-Charles de Munain.

In 1995, Editions Ausone, in Blaye, republished L'Élève Gilles, preceded by L'élève André by Michel Suffran, and La veillée avec André Lafon by François Mauriac, illustrations by Jean-Charles de Munain.

In 2010, the publisher Le Festin, in Bordeaux, republished L’Élève Gilles in their collection Cahiers de l’Éveilleur, with preface by François Mauriac and an unpublished afterword by essayist Jean-Marie Planes.

In 2017, the publisher L'Éveilleur, in Bordeaux, republished L'Élève Gilles, with preface by François Mauriac and afterword by Jean-Marie Planes.