1893 photograph of Gide.
André Paul Guillaume Gide (November 22, 1869—February 19, 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947. His father died when he was eleven years old. In 1948 he received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford.
Gide exposes to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation between the two sides of his personality, split apart by a strait-laced education and a narrow social moralism. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, even to the point of owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. His writing explores morality, humanism, and self-identity.
Gide's writings were entered into the Forbidden Books list of the Roman Catholic Church.
Works
- L'Immoraliste (1902), translated as The Immoralist
- La porte étroite (1909) translated as Strait is the Gate
- Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925), translated in 1927 as The Counterfeiters