Hervé Bazin

(pseudonym of Jean Pierre Marie Hervé-Bazin). Born Apr. 17, 1911, at Angers. French writer. Studied at the Sorbonne. Broke from his bourgeois family background; took up “manual” labor.

Bazin’s collections of verse include Parts (1933), Faces (1934), Days (1947), Chasing After Iris (1948), and Moods (1953). He chastises the private lives of the bourgeoisie in his novel Beating Your Head Against the Wall (1949) and in his realistic two-part novel series The Rezeau Family (Russian translation, 1965), where the system of domestic torments (vol. 1, Serpent in the Fist, 1948) gives rise to the moral and ethical revolt of a youth of the 20th century who rejects the parasitic way of life and dog-eat-dog morality (vol. 2, Death of a Pony, 1950). Bazin counterposes to the bourgeoisie gone wild, the selflessness of the poor or of the intellectuals (the collection of novellas The Marriage Bureau, 1951) and their self-sacrificing qualities (the novel Arise and Go, 1952; Russian translation, 1965) and parental feelings (In the Name of the Son, 1960; Russian translation, 1964), and their goodness (the collection of novellas Hats Off, 1963). At times, Bazin paid tribute to naturalism, as in the novel Oil on the Fire (1954). The main element in his work is the condemnation of the bourgeois family and of the destructive power of money and things (the novel Conjugal Life, 1967). Since 1958, Bazin has been a member of the Goncourt Academy.