Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature, François Mauriac (mawr-yahk) is unquestionably one of the most prolific and versatile writers of twentieth century France. He was born in Bordeaux, the fifth and youngest child of Jean-Paul and Claire Mauriac. The Bordeaux origins of his mother and the Langon, Malagar, and Landes origins of his father provide the major settings for the sociopsychological dramas in his novels, short novels, and plays. Many of his protagonists share Mauriac’s own experiences of youth in Bordeaux. At the Marianite school of Grand-Lebrun, which he attended between the ages of twelve and seventeen, Mauriac read those authors who first made a deep impression upon him and about whom he would later write commentaries: Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Francis Jammes, Jean Racine, Honoré de Balzac, Maurice Barrès, and Blaise Pascal.

At the age of seventeen Mauriac enrolled at the University of Bordeaux, where he studied under Fortunat Strowski, a specialist on Pascal. While completing his degree in letters Mauriac joined the social Catholic movement of Marc Sangnier. Yet he continued to read Barrès, a lover of Pascal, individualism, introspection, and prayer. Instead of completing a thesis on the origins of the Franciscans in France, the twenty-one-year-old Mauriac decided to study theology in Paris, first with the Maristes, at which time he left Sangnier’s movement, and then at the School of Chartes.

The year 1909 marked the first turning point in Mauriac’s life: He abandoned his studies in theology, determined to become a writer. The same year he published his first work, a small collection of poems titled Les Mains jointes (folded hands). Encouraged by Barrès, Mauriac began to associate with such literary figures as Francis Jammes, Jean Cocteau, and Paul Claudel. Another collection of poems followed in 1911, and in 1913 he married Jeanne Lafon. After the publication of A Kiss for the Leper in 1922, Mauriac produced a series of other successful novels—Genitrix, The Desert of Love, Thérèse—another collection of poems, and a series of essays on literature, provincial life, and religion.

The second turning point in Mauriac’s life was marked by the publication of three essays. While working on Souffrances du chrétien (1928; sufferings of the Christian) Mauriac was tempted to abandon his faith. Only a few weeks later he underwent a spiritual experience that renewed his faith and enabled him to answer, in God and Mammon, André Gide’s accusation that being a writer and being a believer are incompatible. The third essay, Bonheur du chrétien (1929; happiness of the Christian), was then joined to the first to express an affirmation of faith; they were later translated together as Anguish and Joy of the Christian Life.

Mauriac’s 1932 Vipers’ Tangle, which many consider to be a masterpiece, proved to be an unsurpassed success in structure and character development. In his Le Romancier et ses personnages (the novelist and his characters), Mauriac once again expressed his view that a believer needs to separate the urgency of his faith from the independent choices of his art. In November, 1933, Mauriac was elected to the distinguished French Academy.

Thereafter Mauriac experienced success as well as failure, but his work never ceased to be a topic of controversy. He worked with several literary reviews and newspapers, in addition to producing four theatrical works, beginning with Asmodée , which was presented at the Comédie-Française in 1937. He wrote essays on a variety of religious and political subjects. By the end of his life, Mauriac had written thousands of pages of autobiographical works, memoirs, journals, and commentaries, many of which...