Roger Martin du Gard
French novelist
Who was Roger Martin du Gard?
Roger Martin du Gard (French: [ʁɔʒe maʁtɛ̃ dy ɡaʁ]; 23 March 1881 – 22 August 1958) was a French novelist, winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature. Trained as a paleographer and archivist, he brought to his works a spirit of objectivity and a scrupulous regard for detail, and because of his concern with documentation and the relationship of social reality to individual development, his fiction has been linked with the realist and naturalist traditions of the 19th century.
Historical significance
He is best known for The Thibaults, a multi-volume roman fleuve which follows the fortunes of two brothers, Antoine and Jacques Thibault, from their upbringing in a prosperous Catholic bourgeois family to the end of the World War I. Six parts of the novel were published between 1922 and 1929. His sympathy for the humanist socialism and pacifism of Jean Jaurès is evident in his work.