Feature Articles

Henri Troyat (1911-2007)
by Cherie Prior, Customer Service Bibliographer

Popular biographer and novelist, Henri Troyat, whose works have influenced the literature and cultures of both France and Russia, has died at the age of 95.

Born Lev Aslanovitch Tarassov in Moscow on November 1, 1911, he was the son of wealthy parents. With the outbreak of the revolution in Russia, his family was forced to flee to France, where he changed his name to Henri Troyat. Troyat studied law at the Sorbonne and went on to obtain his French citizenship in 1933. By 1935, he had written his first novel, Faux Jour (False light), a short psychological work, which was awarded the Prix du Roman Populiste that same year. His fifth novel, L'Araigne (The Spider), published in 1938 when he was only 27, went on to win the Prix Max Barthou de l'Académie Française and the highest and most prestigious literary award in France, the Prix Goncourt.

Throughout his lifetime, Troyat wrote more than 100 works, including biographies, novels, and plays. He never returned to his Russian homeland and he wrote entirely in French, yet Russia remained a large influence in his life. Troyat authored biographies of many Russian notables, including Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Alexander II, as well as fellow Russian writers like Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov, and Boris Pasternak. French Culture Minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said in honor of Troyat, "Thanks to him, the Russian novel has become a bit French."

His contemporaries were Marguerite Duras, Claude Simon, and Nathalie Sarraute, leaders of the Nouveau Roman movement in France, but Troyat was influenced more by Flaubert and Gogol and his own novels reflect a distinct style reminiscent of 19th century works. When asked how he had developed his style, Troyat responded, "I would read a paragraph of Flaubert out loud and rewrite it from memory. Then, by comparing my version with the original, I would try to understand why what I had written was an affront to what I had read." The resulting writing style, which is still extremely popular and much beloved by the French people, led to his election into the Académie Française in 1959.

My favorite example of the imaginativeness that can be found in his writing is expressed in the introduction to a collection of novels and short stories, les ailes du diable (the devil's wings). He wrote, "In truth, this book for me was an amusement and I wish that the reader consider it as such. Here, the heroes walk with their head hung low, ghosts give the living a leg up, the laughter bursts out of the gasps of fear, the angels have horns and the devils, wings."

Henri Troyat died on Sunday, March 4, 2007. During a tribute on the following Monday, fellow Académie Française member, Maurice Druon, accurately summarized Troyat's life's work, "He wrote a simple and clear language, a language that lasts, eternal French."

Below is a list of titles by Henri Troyat, available from YBP and Baker & Taylor. For your convenience, this list is also available in a MS Excel spreadsheet. click here

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