The directory «Plots»

Beucler André
(1898—1985)

A French literary figure, a writer of memoirs, Andre Beucler was born in St. Petersburg on 23rd February 1898.

He was the privileged friend and often the fellow-traveller of some very distinguished literary and artisitic figures. He refers to some of them in four volumes of portraits and memoirs : Marcel Achard, Marcel Aymé, Emmanuel Berl, Pierre Bonnard, Pierre Bost, Emmanuel Bove, Pierre Brasseur, André Cayatte, Blaise Cendrars, André Chamson, Jean Cocteau, René Crevel, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Robert Desnos, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Alfred Fabre-Luce, Léon-Paul Fargue, Jean Gabin, Gaston Gallimard, Jean Giraudoux, Max Jacob, Louis Jouvet, Louis Joxe, Joseph Kessel, Valéry Larbaud, Marie Laurencin, Pierre Mac Orlan, André Malraux, Roger Martin du Gard, Paul Morand, Jean Prévost, Saint-John Perse, Paul Valéry.

His particularly rich biography makes it difficult to summarize. A central feature of his private life was that he married the same woman three times (1928 - 1945 - 1964). The beautiful Natacha, born in Petrograd in 1907, half Russian like him, she fascinated fashionable Paris. Having met in France in 1927, they had two sons from their successive unions, Serge and Roland. She outlived Beucler by just one year.

As for "honours" - on which he set little value - it is important to say all the same that Beucler was, like Alexandre Vialatte and Marcel Ayme, an awardwinner of the Blumenthal Foundation, which, during the Twenties, was very prestigious, and that three times he missed the Goncourt although his editor had maintained high hopes - deep down this reassured them that his writing really was modern. However, although there was no getting away from the Rosettes of the Legion d'Honneur and of the Arts et Lettres, he accepted with pleasure in 1981 the Grand Prix de la Societe des Gens de Lettres for his entire work.

Awards
1957 Prix de la Société des Gens de Lettres.
1981 Prix de l'Académie française pour De Saint-Pétersbourg à Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
1982 Prix de la Société des Gens de Lettres pour l'ensemble de son œuvre.

France, 1986, «Gueule d'amour»