ANDRE GIDE

ANDRÉ GIDE

 

FICTION AND FERVOUR

 

By Jeremy Robinson

 

 

André Gide (1869-1951) is a writer’s writer, a sophisticated modern artist who progressed from French Symbolism to international postmodernism. 

André Gide is a mass of contradictions, paradoxes and tensions of all kinds. He is puritanical but pagan • an ascetic who adores sensuality • an atheist who yearns for God • a homosexual who all his life loved his wife, Madeleine Rondeaux • he strived for objectivity while remaining one of the most introspective of writers • he needed the rainy domesticity of Normandy and the sun-baked wildness of North Africa • despite his prolific output he produced only one novel (in his sense of the term) • he is very much a part of the modern European tradition (of Fyodor Dostoievsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustave Flaubert, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé), while also standing outside it all, unclassifiable. 

The book concentrates on the texts Fruits of the Earth, The Immoralist, and the Journals, and aspects of Gide’s work such as art, religion, philosophy, love and identity. 

This new edition has been completely updated. 

Includes illustrations featuring Gide, bibliography and notes.