André Malraux André Malraux DSO ( ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976 ) was a French novelist , art theorist and Minister for Cultural Affairs . Malraux ' s novel " La Condition Humaine " ( Man ' s Fate ) ( 1933 ) won the Prix Goncourt . He was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as Minister of Information ( 1945 – 1946 ) and subsequently as France ' s first Minister of Cultural Affairs during de Gaulle ' s presidency ( 1959 – 1969 ) . Early years . Malraux was born in Paris in 1901 , the son of Fernand - Georges Malraux and Berthe Lamy ( Malraux ) . His parents separated in 1905 and eventually divorced . There are suggestions that Malraux ' s paternal grandfather committed suicide in 1909 . Malraux was raised by his mother , maternal aunt Marie and maternal grandmother , Adrienne Lamy - Romagna , who had a grocery store in the small town of Bondy . His father , a stockbroker , committed suicide in 1930 after the international crash of the stock market and onset of the Great Depression . From his childhood , associates noticed that André had marked nervousness and motor and vocal tics . The recent biographer Olivier Todd , who published a book on Malraux in 2005 , suggests that he had Tourette ' s syndrome , although that has not been confirmed . Either way , most critics have not seen this as a significant factor in Malraux ' s life or literary works . The young Malraux left formal education early , but he followed his curiosity through the booksellers and museums in Paris , and explored its rich libraries as well . Marriage and family . In 1922 , Malraux married Clara Goldschmidt . Malraux and his first wife separated in 1938 but didn ' t divorce before 1947 . His daughter from this marriage , Florence ( b . 1933 ) , married the filmmaker Alain Resnais . After the breakdown of his marriage with Clara , Malraux lived with journalist and novelist Josette Clotis , starting in 1933 . Malraux and Josette had two sons : Pierre - Gauthier ( 1940 – 1961 ) and Vincent ( 1943 – 1961 ) . During 1944 , while Malraux was fighting in Alsace , Josette died , aged 34 , when she slipped while boarding a train . His two sons died together in 1961 in an automobile accident . In 1948 , Malraux married a second time , to Marie - Madeleine Lioux , a concert pianist and the widow of his half - brother , Roland Malraux . They separated in 1966 . Subsequently , Malraux lived with Louise de Vilmorin in the Vilmorin family château at Verrières - le - Buisson , Essonne , a suburb southwest of Paris . Vilmorin was best known as a writer of delicate but mordant tales , often set in aristocratic or artistic milieu . Her most famous novel was " Madame de . . . " , published in 1951 , which was adapted into the celebrated film " The Earrings of Madame de . . . " ( 1953 ) , directed by Max Ophüls and starring Charles Boyer , Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio de Sica . Vilmorin ' s other works included " Juliette " , " La lettre dans un taxi " , " Les belles amours " , " Saintes - Unefois " , and " Intimités " . Her letters to Jean Cocteau were published after the death of both correspondents . After Louise ' s death , Malraux spent his final years with her relative , Sophie de Vilmorin . Career . Early years . Malraux ' s first published work , an article entitled " The Origins of Cubist Poetry " , appeared in the magazine " Action " in 1920 . This was followed in 1921 by three semi - surrealist tales , one of which , " Paper Moons " , was illustrated by Fernand Léger . Malraux also frequented the Parisian artistic and literary milieus of the period , meeting figures such as Demetrios Galanis , Max Jacob , François Mauriac , Guy de Pourtalès , André Salmon , Jean Cocteau , Raymond Radiguet , Florent Fels , Pascal Pia , Marcel Arland , Edmond Jaloux , and Pierre Mac Orlan . Indochina . In 1923 , aged 22 , Malraux left for Cambodia with Clara . There , together with Clara and a friend , Louis Chevasson , he undertook a small expedition into unexplored areas of the Cambodian jungle in search of lost Khmer temples , hoping to recover items that might be sold to art museums . On his return , he was arrested by French colonial authorities for removing a " bas - relief " from " Banteay Srei " ( a somewhat ironic turn of events given that French authorities had themselves removed large numbers of statues and bas - reliefs from temples such as Angkor Wat ) . Malraux , who believed he had acted within the law as it then stood , contested the charges but was unsuccessful . Malraux ' s experiences in Indochina led him to become highly critical of the French colonial authorities there . In 1925 , he helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper " L ' Indochine " . On his return to France , Malraux published " The Temptation of the West " ( 1926 ) . The work was in the form of an exchange of letters between a Westerner and an Asian , comparing aspects of the two cultures . This was followed by his first novel " The Conquerors " ( 1928 ) , and then by " The Royal Way " ( 1930 ) which reflected some of his Cambodian experiences . In 1933 Malraux published " Man ' s Fate " ( " La Condition Humaine " ) , a novel about the 1927 failed Communist rebellion in Shanghai . The work was awarded the 1933 Prix Goncourt . Spanish Civil War . During the 1930s , Malraux was active in the anti - fascist Popular Front in France . At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain , serving in and helping to organize the small Spanish Republican Air Force . ( Curtis Cate , one of his biographers , claims that Malraux was slightly wounded twice during efforts to stop the Falangists ' takeover of Madrid , but the historian Hugh Thomas claims otherwise . ) The French government sent aircraft to Republican forces in Spain , but they were obsolete by the standards of 1936 . They were mainly Potez 540 bombers and Dewoitine D . 372 fighters . The slow Potez 540 rarely survived three months of air missions , moving some 80 knots against enemy fighters flying at more than 250 knots . Few of the fighters proved to be airworthy , and they were delivered intentionally without guns or gunsights . ( The Ministry of Defense of France had feared that modern types of planes would easily be captured by the Germans fighting for Francisco Franco , and the lesser models were a way of maintaining official " neutrality " . ) The planes were surpassed by more modern types introduced by the end of 1936 on both sides . The Republic circulated photos of Malraux standing next to some Potez 540 bombers suggesting that France was on their side , at a time when France and the United Kingdom had declared official neutrality . But Malraux ' s commitment to the Republicans was personal , like that of many other foreign volunteers , and there was never any suggestion that he was there at the behest of the French Government . Malraux himself was not a pilot , and never claimed to be one , but his leadership qualities seem to have been recognized because he was made Squadron Leader of the ' España ' squadron . Acutely aware of the Republicans ' inferior armaments , of which outdated aircraft were just one example , he toured the United States to raise funds for the cause . In 1938 he published " L ' Espoir " ( Man ' s Hope ) , a novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences . Malraux ' s participation in major historical events such as the Spanish Civil War inevitably brought him determined adversaries as well as strong supporters , and the resulting polarization of opinion has colored , and rendered questionable , much that has been written about his life . Fellow combatants praised Malraux ' s leadership and sense of camaraderie , although Antony Beevor says he was criticized by the representative of the Comintern who described him as an " adventurer " for his high profile and demands on the Spanish Republican government . ( This criticism is not surprising , however , since the Comintern regularly attacked anyone who did not toe the party line , and despite his support for the Republicans , Malraux was never a member of the Communist Party . ) Antony Beevor also claims that " Malraux stands out , not just because he was a mythomaniac in his claims of martial heroism – in Spain and later in the French Resistance – but because he cynically exploited the opportunity for intellectual heroism in the legend of the Spanish Republic . " These statements are , however , very questionable since Malraux nowhere makes " claims of martial heroism " . In fact , he rarely wrote about his own military experience and when he did ( e . g . in his " Antimemoirs " ) placed very little emphasis on his own role . As a general comment it is worth adding that Malraux ' s participation in events such as the Spanish Civil War has tended to distract attention from his important literary achievement . Malraux saw himself first and foremost as a writer and thinker ( and not " man of action " as biographers so often portray him ) but his extremely eventful life - a far cry from the stereotype of the French intellectual confined to his study or a Left Bank café - has tended to obscure this fact . As a result , his literary works , including his important works on the theory of art , have received less attention than one might expect , especially in Anglophone countries . World War II . At the beginning of the Second World War , Malraux joined the French Army . He was captured in 1940 during the Battle of France but escaped and later joined the French Resistance . In 1944 , he was captured by the Gestapo . He later commanded the tank unit Brigade Alsace - Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in the attack on Stuttgart . After the war , Malraux was awarded the " Médaille de la Résistance " and the Croix de guerre . The British awarded him the Distinguished Service Order , for his work with British liaison officers in Corrèze , Dordogne and Lot . After Dordogne was liberated , Malraux led a battalion of former resistance fighters to Alsace - Lorraine , where they fought alongside the First Army . During the war , he worked on his last novel , " The Struggle with the Angel " , the title drawn from the story of the Biblical Jacob . The manuscript was destroyed by the Gestapo after his capture in 1944 . A surviving first section , titled " The Walnut Trees of Altenburg " , was published after the war . After the war . Shortly after the war , General Charles de Gaulle appointed Malraux as his Minister for Information ( 1945 – 1946 ) . Soon after , he completed his first book on art , " The Psychology of Art " , published in three volumes ( 1947 – 1949 ) . The work was subsequently revised and republished in one volume as " The Voices of Silence " ( " Les Voix du Silence " ) , the first part of which has been published separately as " The Museum without Walls " . Other important works on the theory of art were to follow . These included the three - volume " Metamorphosis of the Gods " and " Precarious Man and Literature " , the latter published posthumously in 1977 . When de Gaulle returned to the French presidency in 1958 , Malraux became France ' s first Minister of Cultural Affairs , a post he held from 1958 to 1969 . Among many initiatives , he launched an innovative ( and subsequently widely - imitated ) program to clean the blackened facades of notable French buildings , revealing the natural stone underneath . He also created a number of " maisons de la culture " in provincial cities and worked to preserve France ' s national heritage . In 1957 , Malraux published the first volume of his trilogy on art entitled " The Metamorphosis of the Gods " . The second two volumes ( not yet translated into English ) were published shortly before he died . They are entitled " L ’ Irréel " and " L ' Intemporel " and discuss artistic developments from the Renaissance to modern times . Malraux also initiated the series " Arts of Mankind " , an ambitious survey of world art that generated more than thirty large , illustrated volumes . Malraux was an outspoken supporter of the Bangladesh liberation movement during the 1971 Pakistani Civil War and despite his age seriously considered joining the struggle . During this post - war period , Malraux also published a series of semi - autobiographical works , the first entitled " Antimémoires " ( 1967 ) . A later volume in the series , " Lazarus " , is a reflection on death occasioned by his experiences during a serious illness . " La Tête d ' obsidienne " ( 1974 ) ( translated as " Picasso ' s Mask " ) concerns Picasso , and visual art more generally . Malraux died in Créteil , near Paris , on 23 November 1976 . He was buried in the Verrières - le - Buisson ( Essonne ) cemetery . In recognition of his contributions to French culture , his ashes were moved to the Panthéon in Paris during 1996 , on the twentieth anniversary of his passing . Legacy and honours . There is now a large and steadily growing body of critical commentary on Malraux ' s literary " œuvre " , including his very extensive writings on art . Unfortunately , some of his works , including the last two volumes of " The Metamorphosis of the Gods " ( " L ' Irréel " and " L ' Intemporel " ) are not yet available in English translation . Malraux ' s works on the theory of art contain a revolutionary approach to art that challenges the Enlightenment tradition that treats art simply as a source of " aesthetic pleasure " . However , as French writer André Brincourt has commented , Malraux ' s books on art have been " skimmed a lot but very little read " ( this is especially true in Anglophone countries ) and the radical implications of his thinking are often missed . A particularly important aspect of Malraux ' s thinking about art is his explanation of the capacity of art to transcend time . In contrast to the traditional notion that art endures because it is timeless ( " eternal " ) , Malraux argues that art lives on through metamorphosis - a process of resuscitation ( where the work had fallen into obscurity ) and transformation in meaning . Quotations . " " Man is dead " , after God " . Malraux , " The Temptation of the West " . ( 1926 ) ‘ The artist is not the transcriber of the world , he is its rival . ’ Malraux , " L ' Intemporel " ( 3rd volume of " The Metamorphosis of the Gods " . ) ' In a world in which everything is subject to the passing of time , art alone is both subject to time and yet victorious over it ' . " Malraux in a television program about art , 1975 " . " Art is an object lesson for the gods . " " The Voices of Silence " " The art museum is one of the places that give us the highest idea of man . " " The Voices of Silence " " Humanism does not consist in saying : ‘ No animal could have done what I have done , ’ but in declaring : ‘ We have refused what the beast within us willed to do , and we seek to reclaim man wherever we find that which crushes him . ’ " " The Voices of Silence " " The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between this profusion of matter and the stars , but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness . " " Les Noyers de l ' Altenburg " Bibliography . For a more complete bibliography , see Site littéraire André Malraux .