Schwarz-bart, André 1928-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born May 23, 1928, in Metz, Lorraine, France; died September 30, 2006. Author. Schwarz-Bart was best known for his Prix Goncourt-winning novel, The Last of the Just. The son of Polish immigrants who moved to the Alsace-Lorraine province of France later annexed by Germany, he experienced a tragic childhood. The oldest child in the family, he was made responsible for helping his siblings flee the Nazis, but they were eventually put in a Paris internment camp. Schwarz-Bart escaped and found help from the French Resistance, until he was recaptured by the Germans. Once more, he managed to flee and this time became an active underground fighter. After the war, he learned that his parents had been killed, and he enlisted in the French Army. He then attended trade schools and eventually enrolled at the Sorbonne. Schwarz-Bart's debut novel, Le dernier des justes (1959), was his most successful and was translated into English the next year. It was also adapted as an opera by Thomas Z. Shepard and Gerald Walker. Continuing to make a living as a freelance writer, Schwarz-Bart wrote other books in collaboration with his wife, Simone. These include the novels Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes (1967), which earned a Jerusalem Prize, and La mulâtresse solitude (1972), which was translated as A Woman Named Solitude (1973).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), November 23, 2006, p. 81.