The Carré d’Art in Nîmes presents the exhibition “What men have we become?” from April 14 to July 11. Alcide editions bounce back and release an exceptional book.
These two events complement each other perfectly. At Carré d’Art, the exhibition recounts the journey of André Chamson, an intellectual for uncertain times. Alcide’s book, on the other hand, traces the life of a man who deserves to be recognized to become someone known again.
According to the publisher and founder of Alcide, Yann Cruvellier: “Chamson suffers from a double injustice: forgetfulness and/or the label of ‘regional writer’. A friend of Giono, he followed in Ramuz’s footsteps.”
André Chamson himself was aware of this phenomenon. “I have never considered my novels as regional novels. I do not know regional men. However, I know that every man is from somewhere. Must we say, once again, that nothing is original except the original and that if the universal does not reveal itself to us through the particular, it may never be more than the shadow of a shadow? No book is regional except for the missing books.”
And Yann Cruvellier continues: “In terms of forgetfulness, we must remember a Chamson who left his mark on his time. Chief of staff to Daladier, co-founder of Vendredi with Jean Guéhenno, future author of the “Journal of the Dark Years,” friend of Gide, Martin du Gard, Saint-Exupéry, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Kawabata, to name just a few, his works are translated worldwide.”
Sartre wrote in his famous War Diaries: “I am not a great man of this world and I do not see the great men of this world, so my diary will not have the value that Giraudoux’s or Chamson’s could have.” It is true that Chamson is almost a forgotten author today. But not entirely. Voices rise, brains ponder to reevaluate his place at the heart of our society. Even disappeared, he remains exemplary. It may be in the 21st century that his writings take on their full meaning.
“Chamson, his faith in humanity, his analytical lucidity, and his commitments resonate in today’s world. That is why it is necessary to reread him and discover what a writer he was, because it is as such that he gained the recognition of his peers,” adds Yann Cruvellier.
Everyone will recognize in André Chamson an author, a humanist. André Chamson enjoyed success from his first novel, Roux the Bandit (which has been reissued by Alcide in a book, but also in a magnificent comic book).
He was involved in the debates of the 1930s, founded the magazine Vendredi, one of the tribunes of the Popular Front. His work, which earned him election to the French Academy, is translated worldwide.
But André Chamson is also a claim. “The word that reveals the secret of his native Cévennes, ‘Resist!,’ as the foundation of his convictions. Combining rare work ethic with undeniable courage, he supported the Spanish Republicans, engaged in the Resistance, and then as a commander within the Alsace-Lorraine brigade he created with André Malraux…
A clear and limpid writing style, clarity and lucidity of analysis, commitment: André Chamson lived through a world that was shifting, accompanied by a question, “What men have we become?” His work and his journey resonate particularly today, between resistance and hope.
“Since his young years, Chamson first saw himself as a writer, and for more than half a century, the society of his time recognized him as such. It is the essayist, the memoirist, and more importantly, the novelist who co-directed Vendredi and spoke seven times at the Assembly of the Desert, who was elected to the French Academy in 1956 and whom the former colonel Berger appointed to head the Archives of France in 1959. And if he must remain present in the heart of the 21st century, it can only be because he will continue to make his singular voice heard, as if raised above himself by a demand for freedom that no vicissitude will ever silence, according to the maxim of The Well of Miracles – this little-known book, the black star of Chamson’s work, which the author placed under the aegis of Job and Ezekiel: ‘The best are recognized in hope’,” concludes Pascal Ory, who wrote the preface of “Resist!”
To make the book as good as it is, it took several hands. Soft, intelligible, and sharp, those of Micheline Cellier, Patrick Cabanel, Eddy Noblet, Guillaume Bope, and Pascal Ory.
With over 180 pages, “Resist!” offers an honest and endearing panorama of a man’s life, of a family. Drawings, correspondences, photos, press clippings, testimonies… If you love Chamson, if you don’t know him well or not at all, if you’re curious, if you want to see a Man in all his grandeur, go to the Carré d’Art exhibition and buy this book!
“André Chamson, Resist! by Alcide editions, 188 pages for 18 euros.”
