Léon Cladel


Cladel, Léon

 

Born Mar. 13, 1835, in Montauban; died July 20, 1892, in Sèvres. French writer. Son of a saddler.

Cladel published a cycle of “peasant” novellas and novels. The Paris Commune of 1871 provided him with new themes. His works of the 1870’s and 1880’s glorify the Communards and present proletarian heroes—for example, Jacques Ratas (INRI; 1872–87, published 1931; Russian translations, 1933 and 1951). The simplified characterizations and declarative style did not obscure Cladel’s true democratic zeal, which was noted by leading contemporary Russian critics. (I. S. Turgenev’s foreword to the collection Sketches and Stories From the Life of the Common People, 1877).

WORKS

Quatre contes: Extrait de “Héros et pantins.” Paris, 1957.

REFERENCE

Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1959.