Joseph Kessel

Biography

Wire of Samuel Kessel, a Lithuanian doctor of Jewish confession formed in France, Joseph Kessel was born in Clara in Argentina by the chance from the professional tribulations from his/her father. The first years of its life occur to Orenburg, in the the Ural, then the Kessel family settles in France.

Joseph Kessel makes his secondary studies with the Lycée Masséna with Nice, then with the Louis-the-Large Lycée with Paris. Male nurse stretcher-bearer during a few months in 1914, it obtains in 1915 a license of letters and begins at seventeen years with the Journal of the debates in the service of Politics foreign.

The suicide of his/her young brother, Lazare, who will be called Daniel in the Turn of Misfortune , will be in the life of Kessel a tear which time will never repair. Its alter disappeared ego, Kessel will seek all its life, and will find sometimes, in the virile friendship, the compensation with this irremediable loss. Mermoz, Saint Exupéry, Henry de Monfreid… is the companions of a life so powerful which it does not cease coming very close to death. Other assistants of the Nuits of Montmartre will accompany it in its orgiaques festivals where the Vodka runs with flood. But they will not have all the force of the “lion”, as Courrière calls that of which he wrote the biography ( On the track of the lion ), and in its powerful wake, Kessel, without very realizing it, will cause the loss of several loved beings.

Thus was it of Michele, one of the many women that Kessel liked. Sandy is the absolute love of the life of Kessel. She is the married young person whose early death will haunt Kessel and of which it will nourish a heavy culpability. How one young graduate also charming, just and soft as Sandy can be made carry by the Tuberculose, and him, playing with the life as with a die, remains alive! Here are which shakes the faith of that which saw Juif deeply.

The lion Joseph Kessel, the Adventurous , the Aviator, the thousand times ressuscity, the brutal one, the player and the drinker… will always take along with him, in all its peregrinations, a small case. Each evening, in one or the other of the hotels of all the ends of the world, it will open this small furnace bridge and will request in front of the portraits of Sandy and Lazare. Large admiror of the Rumanian writer Panaït Istrati, Kessel shares with this vagrant of the Balkans this nature where the alternate deer with tightening men more.

At the end of 1916, Joseph Kessel chooses to take share with the engagements, and begins in artillery then in aviation, where it will be useful within the S.39 flotilla. From this episode, it will draw later the subject from its first novel with success, the Crew .

At the end of the conflict, Kessel requires French nationality. It carries the Military Cross, and the Military decoration. The weather already was twice during the round the world tour.

It takes again its collaboration with the Journal of the debates , also writes for Liberté , the Figaro , the Mercure de France , etc It starts a double career of international reporter and Romancier. It covers the Irish revolution , and will write on this subject a news ( Marie of Cork ). It explores the hollows of Berlin. To the the Sahara, it flies on the first lines of the Aéropostale before becoming the friend of Jean Mermoz of which it will write a biography, Mermoz , and sails with the Négrier S of the Red Sea.

In July 1936, the Civil war bursts in Spain. Joseph Kessel is sent by Pierre Lazareff, the owner of the famous daily newspaper Paris-Evening, to cover the conflict in republican Spain, accompanied by the photographer Jean Moral.

Correspondent war in 1939-40, it becomes Résistant in occupied France. It is in Joseph Kessel and his nephew Maurice Druon that one owes the French text of the Chant of the partisans , in May 1943, composed by Anna Marly. " The Marseillaise of Résistance" , was created in 1943 in London. Sung by Germaine Fine sand, sister of Jean Sablon, who was her partner lasting of long years, this song became the anthem of French Resistance. It is also a call with the fraternal fight for freedom: " It is we who break the bars of the prisons for our frères" ; the certainty which the combat is never vain " if you tombs, a friend leave the ombre".

It is also with this one that it crosses the the Pyrenees clandestinely to gain London and to engage in the free French Forces of the general De Gaulle.

Kessel publishes, in homage to these combatants, the Army of the shades . It will finish the war, captain of aviation, in a flotilla which at night flew over France to maintain the connections with Resistance and to give him instructions.

With the Release, it takes again its activity international reporter. In November 1944, it joined the 2nd Regiment of hunters parachutists (SAS) in the area of Épernay, in order to collect testimonys which will be used to him to write to the Battalion of the sky , which will become in 1947 the Film carrying out more 8 500 000 entries, a record for the Cinema French.

In 1948, it obtains the 1st Israeli visa with the independence of the country, and will be the first foreigner to enter the independent Israel.

In 1960, it publishes the Hands of the miracle , the incredible history of a masseur Finnish, Felix Kersten, which looks after powerful the Nazi Heinrich Himmler and manages to save thousands of life n the other hand. He travelled in Africa, Burma (voyage whose he will draw the Valley from the rubies ) and in Afghanistan. These is the latter country which inspires its romantic masterpiece to him, the Riders (1967), outlined in the play of the king . Come in Afghanistan to make a film there, Joseph Kessel meets Mohammed Zaher Chah, which facilitates the logistics of the team largely. Old man, the king will remember “this friend”.

Ultimate dedication for this wire of Jewish emigrants, the French Academy opened its doors to him by electing it the November 22nd 1962 with the armchair of the duke of the Force, by 14 vote against 10 with Marcel Brion, with the first ballot. The establishment of this adventurer except standard, traveller, opium addict, inveterate player and heavy drinker, who writes with the gallop and makes the round the world tour like others the turn of a chair, is a paving stone thrown in the academic pond of the French literary vault.

He dies of a rupture of Anévrisme on July 23rd, 1979 surrounded as of his.

Works

red Steppe , Gallimard, 1922
the Crew , Gallimard, 1923 (new edition in 1969)
Wind of sand , Hatchet, 1923
With the camp of overcome, or Critic of May 11th , Gallimard, 1924 (with Georges Suarez)
Meeting at the restaurant , the Sign of the Narrow Door, 1925
the blind Kings , Editions of France, 1925
Mary of Cork , Gallimard, 1925
Memories of a police chief of the people , Champion, 1925
three-seater the , Marcelle Lessage, 1926
Makhno and its Jewish , EOS, 1926
Harvest of October, the City of the books, 1926
the Prisoners , Gallimard, 1926, Grand Prix of the novel of the French Academy
the of the Captain Sogoub , With Without Similar, 1926
Naki the kourouma, 1926

Ground of love , Editions of France, 1927

Nights of princes , Editions of France, 1927

the Rage with the Belly , EOS, 1927

cracked Cut. Funny of Christmas , Lemarget editions, 1927

In Syria , Simon Kra, 1927

Of the street of Rome to the way of Paradise. , the Editions of the Dial, 1927

the Woman of house or Mariette at the desert , Simon Kra, 1928

red Literature , Company of conferences of the Principality of Monaco, 1927

Ladies of California , Emile Hazan, 1928

Beautiful of day , Gallimard, 1928, inspired film of Luis Buñuel in 1967.

the nights of Siberia , Flammarion, 1928

the rule of the man , Gallimard, 1928

Nouveaux tales. The alarm bell of Easter - the typhic one - a turn of the devil - the police chief of the dead one - the law of the mountains. , Editions of the Free Books, 1928

Secret Parisian , Editions of the Free Books, 1928

the Death-blow , Editions of France, 1931

Of the street of Rome to the way of Paradise , Editions of the Dial, 1931

square Fortune , Editions of France, 1932

Hollows , Editions of the Gantries, 1932

Sleeping car , Gallimard, 1932

Nights of Montmartre , Editions of France, 1932

cruel Nights , Editions of France, 1932

Gone ofslaves , Editions of France, 1933

pure Hearts , Gallimard, 1934

the Children of the chance , Gallimard, 1934

Stavisky, the man whom I knew , Gallimard, 1934

rest of the crew , Gallimard, 1935

a stray bullet , Editions of France, 1935

Hollywood, city mirage , Gallimard, 1936

the Busy one of the Without-Concern , Gallimard, 1936, carried to the screen by Jacques Rouffio in 1982.

the Rose of Java , Gallimard, 1937

Mermoz , Gallimard, 1939

How the marshal Pétain died, France Forever, Executive office, 1942

the Army of the shades , Charlot, 1943, adapted to the cinema by Jean-Pierre Melville in 1969.

Maudru , Julliard-Séquana, 1945

the Battalion of the Sky , Julliard, 1947, adapted to the cinema by Alexandre Esway in 1947

the Turn of misfortune , Gallimard, 1950

the Fountain Médicis

the Bernan Business

pink Bay-trees

the plaster Man

the Rage with the belly , the new business of edition, 1950

Nagaïka. Three accounts , Julliard, 1951

the Lawsuit of the children lost , Julliard, 1951

In Large Socco , Gallimard, 1952

Lovers of Tage , Editions of the Medium of the world, 1954

the fawn-coloured Track , Gallimard, 1954

the Valley of the rubies , Gallimard, 1955 Pilot

among the men , Del Duca, 1956

the Time of the hope

Days of the adventure

the Hour of the punishments

the Springtide

Play of the King

the moments of truth

HongKong and Macao , Gallimard, 1957

the Lion , Gallimard, 1958

the Hands of the miracle , Gallimard 1960

India, peninsula of the gods , Hatchet, 1960

All were not angels , Plon, 1963

For the honor , Plon, 1964

Ground of love and fire. Israel 1925-1961 , Plon, 1965

Israel that I like , Sun, 1966

the Riders , Gallimard, 1967

a wall in Jerusalem , Éditions First, 1968

the blind Kings , Plon, 1970

Wire of impossible the , Plon, 1970

Partout a friend (1972)

Of the men , Gallimard, 1972

the Small white Ass , Gallimard, 1975

wild Times , Gallimard, 1975

last Jugements , Christian de Bartillat, 1995

With the alcoholics anonymouses

Ami you hear… (remarks collected by Jean-Marie Baron) the Roundtable, 2006.

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