Joseph Kessel - died 40 years ago today (23 July 1979)

Joseph Kessel (1898-1979) lived a very full live. You could even say that he lived several lives, because of the amount that he fitted in during his lifetime. He was born in Villa Clara, Argentina to Jewish parents who had made their way to South America from the Russian Empire (what is today Lithuania). He started off in journalism and later wrote many bestselling books of fiction and books based on his travels to exotic places around the world.

IRELAND

One of his earliest foreign journalistic missions was to Ireland. He arrived in Dublin in September 1920 and wrote a series of special articles for the Paris evening newspaper, La Liberté. The Irish War of Independence was a dangerous time, but Kessel managed to speak to many of the main protagonists and write a series of articles on what he witnessed on the ground. It was a very important training exercise for the young journalist and he would later describe his time in Ireland as "mon premier grand reportage".

Photograph of Joseph Kessel in 1927. Image source

BELLE DE JOUR

Kessel spent the next few years writing novels, but still kept up writing newspaper articles for a variety of newspapers. One of his early novels, Belle de jour (1928), was adapted for the cinema by Luis Buñuel in 1967. The film stared Catherine Deneuve and took several awards at the Venice Film Festival that year. The film also introduced Kessel to a wider audience both at home and internationally.

CHANT DES PARTISANS

Kessel had been an aviator in the First World War and during the Second World War, he volunteered to fight for De Gaulle's Free French Air Forces in London. However, his biggest contribution to the war effort was a song that he wrote with his nephew, Maurice Druon. Kessel and Druon wrote the lyrics for Le Chant des Partisans in 1943. It soon after became the hymn of the Resistants and is still revered in France to this day for the way it galvanised the Resistants' resolve to win the war. You can listen to an extract of the song here.

There is much more that could be written in this blog post about Kessel's achievements, but I wanted to keep it brief to hold your attention. You can read a short obituary that appeared in the New York Times two days after his death on 23 July 1979.

Perhaps the best advice I can give you is to read one of his books. You will either find them in your local library, or many of his books are still in print today. If you do not understand French, they have been translated into many other languages.