Romain Gary The Man Who Sold His Shadow Ralph Schoolcraft "A
concise, fascinating, brilliant critical biography remarkable for
its scholarship. . . . Schoolcraft's memorable biography of Gary,
the first to appear in English, will serve as a point of departure
for anyone who is interested in twentieth-century French
fiction."--"Choice" In this book Ralph Schoolcraft explores the
extraordinary career of the modern French author, film director,
and diplomat--a romantic and tragic figure whose fictions extended
well beyond his books. Born Roman Kacew, he overcame an
impoverished boyhood to become a French Resistance hero and win the
coveted Goncourt Prize under the pseudonym--and largely invented
persona--Romain Gary. Although he published such acclaimed works as
The Roots of Heaven and Promise at Dawn, the Gaullist traditions
that he defended in the world of French letters fell from favor,
and his critical fortunes suffered at the hands of a hostile press.
Schoolcraft details Gary's frustrated struggle to evolve as a
writer in the eye of a public that now considered him a known
quantity. Identifying the daring strategies used by this mysterious
character as he undertook an elaborate scheme to reach a new
readership, Schoolcraft offers new insight into the dynamics of
authorship and fame within the French literary institutions. In the
early 1970s Gary made his departure from the conservative literary
establishment, publishing works that boasted a quirky, elliptical
style under a variety of pseudonymous personae, the most successful
of which was that of an Algerian immigrant by the name of Emile
Ajar. Moving behind the mask of his new creation, Gary was able to
win critical and popular acclaim and a second Goncourt in 1975. But
as Schoolcraft suggests, Gary may have "sold his shadow"--that is,
lost his authorial persona--by marketing himself too effectively.
Going so far as to recruit a cousin to stand in as the public face
of this phantom author, Gary kept the secret of his true authorship
until his violent death in 1980 from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound. The press reacted with resentment over the scheme, and he
was shunned into the ranks of literary oddities. Schoolcraft draws
from archives of the several thousand documents related to Gary
housed at the French publishing firms of Gallimard and Mercure de
France, as well as the Butler Library at Columbia University.
Exploring the depths of a story that has long remained shrouded in
mystery, "Romain Gary: The Man Who Sold His Shadow" is as much a
fascinating biographical sketch as it is a thought-provoking
reflection on the assumptions made about identities in the public
sphere. Ralph Schoolcraft teaches French at Texas A&M
University. He is the translator of "The Haunting Past: History,
Memory, and Justice in Contemporary France," also available from
the University of Pennsylvania Press. Critical Authors & Issues
2002 224 pages 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8122-3646-0 Cloth $49.95s 32.50
World Rights Literature, Biography Short copy: "Schoolcraft's
memorable biography of Gary, the first to appear in English, will
serve as a point of departure for anyone who is interested in
twentieth-century French fiction."--"Choice"
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