Henry Bordeaux

Born in Thonon-les-Bains on January 25, 1870, Henry Bordeaux came from a family of lawyers in Savoy and trained for the law himself before becoming widely known as a writer. That legal background, along with his strong attachment to his native region, shaped much of his fiction and nonfiction.

Bordeaux wrote novels and essays in great quantity over the course of a remarkably long career. His work is closely associated with Savoy and with themes such as family loyalty, moral responsibility, Catholic belief, and the tension between provincial life and Paris. He was elected to the Académie française, a sign of the prominence he held in French literary life.

He died in Paris on March 29, 1963. Today he is remembered as a major conservative voice in twentieth-century French literature, especially for readers interested in regional writing and novels of character and conscience.