La foi difficile

by Jean Guéhenno

« Me voici assez vieux pour n'écrire plus que pour le plaisir. Pour rien ni pour personne. Pour moi peut-être? Pour voir clair. Je pense à ces papiers chimiques sur lesquels, en les frottant, les enfants font apparaître des lignes et des couleurs. Ils frottent, ils frottent! Quelle bête, quel monstre, quel ange va naître? Nous sommes ces enfants. Nous gribouillons, nous aussi, un papier blanc mystérieux sans bien savoir quelle figure s'y formera, mais cette figure, quelle qu'elle soit, de quelque manière nous révèle à nous-mêmes, et nous continuons, toute la vie, nos gribouillages, tout à la fois impatients et angoissés de nous connaître enfin et de nous voir. »

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Jean Guéhenno, writer and educator, was a prominent contributor to the NRF. He was editor-in-chief of the literary journal Europe from 1929 until May 1936. Guéhenno wrote one novel, 'The Dead Youth', based on his memories of World War I.

During the German occupation of France, Guéhenno refused to publish, believing to do so would be collaboration. Instead he kept a secret journal, chronicling the infringement by the Vichy government of traditional French rights and values, and his own efforts in behalf of the Resistance. This was published in France in 1947.

The first English translation of the journal, by David Ball, was published in 2014 under the title 'Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944.'

According to the translator's introduction, it is "the book French readers have turned to most readily for an account of life under German occupation." The Wall Street Journal included "at the top entry in her list of the Five Best books on the French Resistance "

Jean Guéhenno was elected to the Académie française on 25 January 1962.