André Schwarz-Bart
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André Schwarz-Bart (May 28, 1928, Metz, Moselle - September 30, 2006, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe) was a French novelist of Polish-Jewish origins.
Schwarz-Bart is best known for his novel The Last of the Just (originally published as Le Dernier des justes). The book, which traces the story of a Jewish family from the time of the Crusades to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, earned Schwarz-Bart the Prix Goncourt in 1959. He won the Jerusalem Prize in 1967.
Schwarz-Bart's parents moved to France in 1924, a few years before he was born. In 1941, they were deported to Auschwitz. Soon after, Schwarz-Bart, still a young teen, joined the Resistance, despite the fact that his first language was Yiddish, and he could barely speak French. It was his experiences as a Jew during the war that later prompted him to write his major work, chronicling Jewish history through the eyes of a wounded survivor.
He spent his final years in Guadeloupe, with his wife, the novelist Simone Schwarz-Bart, whose parents were natives of the island. The two co-wrote the book Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes (1967). It is also suggested that his wife collaborated with him on A Woman Named Solitude.[1][2] The two were awarded the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde in 2008 for their lifetime of literary work.[3]
Schwarz-Bart died of a complications after heart surgery in 2006.
Their son, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, is a noted jazz saxophonist.
Bibliography
- (1959) Le Dernier des Justes; Published in English as The Last of the Just (1960)
- (1967) Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes, with Simone Schwarz-Bart. This work has not been published in English but a literal translation of the title would be "A Plate of Pork with Green Bananas."
- (1972) La Mulâtresse Solitude; Published in English as A Woman Named Solitude (1973)
- (1989) Hommage à la femme noire in collaboration with Simone Schwarz-Bart; Published in English as In Praise of Black Women (2001)
- (2009) L'étoile du matin; Published in English as The Morning Star (2011)
Notes
- ↑ Hunter (2002)
- ↑ Books: Out of Africa By HP-Time.com;R.Z. Sheppard Monday, Feb. 05, 1973 Time
- ↑ Aude Désiré (December 15, 2008). "Simone et André Schwarz-Bart, lauréats du prix Carbet". Association Mamanthé. Retrieved December 26, 2013.