Nobel Prize in Literature Recipient. François Mauriac, a French novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, and journalist, received international recognition after being awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the Nobel Prize committee, he received the coveted award "for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life." Since 1946, he received six nominations for the Nobel candidacy. His twenty-three novels, written mostly between 1921 and 1941, explore sin, grace, and redemption, often in conjunction with deep moral struggles. Born François Charles Mauriac, the last of five children, he was eighteen months old when his father died, thus his home life was difficult. He was schooled by his pious mother and later by nuns in a local school. He was a devote Roman Catholic. Majoring in medieval archeology and literature, he entered the University of Bordeaux, graduating in 1905 and in 1906 began classes at the École Nationale des Chartes in Paris, but soon abandoned his formal education for full-time writing. His first published piece was a collection of poems in 1909, "Les Mains jointes" or "Joined Hands." He published two novels after that. During World War I, he served in a medical unit. The novel that made him famous was his 1922 "Le Baiser aux lepreux" or "A Kiss for the Leper." In 1933, he was elected to the French Academy. The same year, he published a partly autobiographical, "Le Mystere Fontenac" or "The Frontenac Mystery," in 1939 "Les Chemins de la mer" or "The Unknown Sea," and in 1941 "La Pharisienne" or "A Woman of the Pharisees", an analysis of religious hypocrisy and the desire for domination. During World War II while Nazi Forces occupied France, he lived in his estate in Malagar and in Paris. He wrote "Le Cahier noir" or "The Black Notebook" using the pseudonym Forez. He was the only author that was a member of the French Academy that published writings about the French Resistance of World War II. After the war in 1958, Charles de Gaulle presented him with a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. He was a supporter of de Gaulle, and published his biography in 1964. The only other biography, which he published, was his 1937 "Life of Jesus." Apart from his many novels, he has published since 1938 four plays, which have been produced by the Comédie Française. His writings looked a life from a religious view point as he examined the ugly realities of modern life in the Light of eternity. Justifying his writing to the critics, he published in 1933 "Le Romancier et ses personnages" or "The Novelist and His Characters" and the four volumes of his "Journal" from 1934 to 1951, followed by three volumes of "Memoirs" from 1959 to 1957. In the later part of his life, he focused on journalism authoring a weekly opinion piece about politics and culture in the French press, which he called his "Bloc-Notes. He wrote on a variety of subjects from the Vietnam War to capital punishment. He was an editorial writer for the daily morning Paris newspaper, "Le Figaro." His 1958 "The Son of Man" was dedicated to "To Elie Wiesel, who was a crucified Jewish child." In 1913 Mauriac married Jeanne Lafon; their first child, Claude, became also a novelist. In April of 1969, he had a serious fall with complications, which eventually led to his death. His 2017, "Francois Mauriac on Race, War, Politics, and Religion : The Great War Through the 1960s" was edited and translated by Nathan Bracher.