André Gide.

André Gide’s father, law professor Paul Gide, died when André was young. His mother Juliette Rondeaux raised him in a strict Calvinist household in Paris. He attended the École alsacienne and Lycée Henri-IV, receiving an education that exposed him to literature. This religious upbringing and literary exposure shaped his lifelong struggles with morality and freedom.

Stéphane Mallarmé praised Gide’s first book, The Notebooks of André Walter 1891. Gide traveled to North Africa in 1893 and 1894, meeting people with different social and sexual conventions. In Algiers, he befriended Oscar Wilde. His collection Fruits of the Earth 1897 found a wide audience. In The Immoralist 1902 and Strait is the Gate 1909, Gide explored psychological dualism. The Pastoral Symphony 1919 exposed religious hypocrisy. The Counterfeiters 1926 examined self-deception. He also collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev on a ballet for the Ballets Russes.

Gide and Madeleine Rondeaux married in 1895 but never consummated the marriage. He had a daughter, Catherine, born in 1923, with Elisabeth van Rysselberghe. Gide acknowledged Catherine only after Madeleine’s death in 1938. He had a relationship with his adopted son Marc Allégret and openly explored his homosexuality in works including Corydon. Madeleine’s death in 1938 affected him.

Gide’s works influenced Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Guillaume Apollinaire. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947. In The God That Failed 1949, he published his critical perspectives on communism. Gide’s frank examination of morality and sexuality and his literary innovations mark his legacy.