author
Roger Martin du Gard
1881–1958
Best known for the sweeping novel cycle Les Thibault, this French writer brought unusual calm, precision, and moral seriousness to stories about family life and a society under strain. He received the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature for work admired for its truthfulness and depth.
1 Audiobook
Jean Barois
by Roger Martin du Gard
About the author
Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, in 1881, Roger Martin du Gard trained as an archivist and paleographer, and that careful, documentary cast of mind stayed with him as a novelist. Readers and critics have often noted the exactness of his style and his steady attention to character, social life, and the pressures of history.
He is most closely associated with Les Thibault, a multi-volume family saga that follows two brothers and the world around them in the years leading up to the First World War. He also wrote Jean Barois, another major novel, and his work earned wide recognition when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1937.
Martin du Gard died in 1958. His fiction is still remembered for combining intimacy with a broad historical view, making private choices feel inseparable from the larger movements of politics, belief, and war.