Georges Bernanos (February 20 1888, Paris—July 5 1948, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a France author, and a soldier in World War I. Of Roman Catholic and monarchist leanings, he was a violent adversary to bourgeois thought and to what he identified as defeatism leading to Battle of France in 1940. Bernanos was born into a family of craftsmen, and spent much of his childhood in the Pas de Calais region, which became a frequent setting for his novels. He served in the World War I as a soldier, where he witnessed the battles of the Somme and Verdun. He was wounded several times. After the war, he worked in insurance before writing Sous le soleil de Satan. Despite his anti-Democracy learnings and his allegiance to the Action Française (he was a member of their youth organization, the Camelots du Roi), he was able to see the danger in Fascism and Nazism (which he described as "disgusting monstrousness") before World War II broke out in Europe, but not after initially celebrating their Catholic allies - Francisco Franco, and the quasi-Fascist Falange - during the Spanish Civil War Bernanos spent part of the conflict in Mallorca, and became disappointed in the Francoist cause, which he grew to criticize in Les Grands Cimetières sous la Lune. Most of his important fictional works were written between 1926 and 1937. He emigrated to South America 1938, and stayed there till 1945, for most of the time in Brazil, where he tried his hand at managing a farm. His three sons returned to France to fight when World War II broke out, while he fulminated at his country's 'spiritual exhaustion' which he saw as the root of its collapse in 1940. From exile he mocked the 'ridiculous' Vichy France and became a strong supporter of the Nationalism Free French Forces led by the Conservatism Charles de Gaulle. After the liberation, de Gaulle invited him to return to France, offering him a post in the government. Bernanos did return, but did not participate actively in French political life. His writings are sharply critical of modern society and its inroads into personal liberty, both through government and through technical development. He was an isolated figure, but maintained a very high reputation among his fellow-writers in France.
Major works

Lettres retrouvées. Correspondance inédite 1904-1948 1983

                       

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