Roland Dorgelès

(pseudonym of Roland Lecavelé). Born June 15, 1886, in Amiens. French writer.

Dorgelès fought in World War I, which he condemned in the “trench” novel Wooden Crosses (1919; Russian translation, 1925) and in the cycle of realistic novellas The Pretty Girl’s Cabaret (1919). He recounted the poverty and lack of rights in the colonies in the journalistic works The Mandarins’ Road (1925; Russian translation, 1926), and Caravan Without Camels (1928). He visited the USSR but judged what he saw in a biased manner, in the spirit of bourgeois liberalism (the book of essays Long Live Freedom!, 1937). As a war correspondent, Dorgelès was a witness to the defeat and fascist occupation of France (the journalistic works Identity Card, 1945, and The Strange War of 1939-1940, 1957). Dorgelès slavishly imitated E. Zola and G. de Maupassant in the novels Everything Is Sold (1956) and Down With Money! (1965); his criticism of the evils of property culminated in his preaching the morality of humility and of “honorable poverty” (the essay An Open Letter to a Billionaire, 1967). Dorgelès has been a member of the Académic Goncourt since 1929 and its president since 1955.