French Literature Reviews - 2026

Aragon Recherches Croisées
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

Cross-Disciplinary Research on Aragon / Elsa Triolet No. 9

Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg

Edited by Corinne Grenouillet and Maryse Vassevière

2004 ISBN 2-86820-249-7
302 p. 15.5x24 cm
Price: 20 €

This ninth issue of Recherches croisées Aragon / Elsa Triolet, a series published by ÉRITA (Équipe de recherche interdisciplinaire Elsa Triolet/Aragon), focuses on the theme of testimony. Luc Vigier, who coordinated this section, examines Aragon's numerous reflections on testimony: while the voice of the witness in Les Martyrs resounds powerfully during the Resistance, it resonates throughout his entire oeuvre. Conversely, testimonies regarding the dark years of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union (1936–1938) and Stalinism appear only a posteriori in La Mise à mort (1965), through the character of Mikhail Koltsov (C. Grenouillet), as well as in Histoire parallèle and Le Fou d'Elsa (Luc Vigier). Several political figures, such as Roland Leroy, Henri Martin, and Francis Cohen, as well as literary figures like Léon Robel and Michel Apel-Muller, share extensive accounts of their encounters and collaborative work with Elsa Triolet and Aragon.
Édouard Ruiz has recovered and published traces of a "never-assembled" collection by Aragon entitled Les Communistes ont raison, written in 1932–1933. Two bibliographies list the books used by Aragon while writing Le Fou d'Elsa (Hervé Bismuth and Suzanne Ravis) and all his articles published in Les Lettres françaises and L'Humanité (Maryse Vassevière). Finally, Franck Merger demonstrates how the debates on painting in Les Voyageurs de l'impériale reflect the aesthetic concerns of the AEAR and Aragon during the 1930s.

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Table of Contents

TRIBUTE
Lionel FOLLET For Édouard Ruiz

ARAGON: UNPUBLISHED PAGES
Édouard RUIZ An Unfinished Collection?: Les Communistes ont raison (1932–1933)

TESTIMONIES SECTION
Luc VIGIER Toward a Hermeneutics of Testimony in the Work of Louis Aragon
Corinne GRENOUILLET Reading Stalinism in Aragon's La Mise à mort: Mikhail Koltsov and the Great Purge of 1936–1938 in the USSR
Luc VIGIER Necessary Witnesses
Interview with Michel Apel-Muller
Interview-Debate: Francis Cohen, Roland Leroy, Henri Martin
Interview with Léon Robel
Luc VIGIER That Witness Who Is Neither: From Histoire parallèle (1962) to Le Fou d'Elsa (1963)

Franck MERGER Color, Apples, and Men: The Debate on Painting in Aragon's Les Voyageurs de l'impériale
Hervé BISMUTH and Suzanne RAVIS Bibliographical Inventory Attempt for Le Fou d'Elsa
Maryse VASSEVIÈRE Aragon as Journalist and Novelist

Source: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg: http://www.pu-strasbourg.com/

Published by the Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg under the editorial direction of Corinne Grenouillet and Maryse Vassevière, this volume is the ninth issue of Recherches croisées Aragon / Elsa Triolet, a series published by ÉRITA. The book focuses on the theme of testimony and includes contributions by scholars such as Luc Vigier, Corinne Grenouillet, Édouard Ruiz, Hervé Bismuth, Suzanne Ravis, Maryse Vassevière, and Franck Merger, alongside accounts and interviews involving political and literary figures who collaborated with Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon.

The book addresses various aspects of the authors' work and context, including Aragon's reflections on testimony in works such as Les Martyrs, La Mise à mort, Histoire parallèle, and Le Fou d'Elsa, as well as an uncollected manuscript from 1932 to 1933 and bibliographies related to their writings. Readers interested in twentieth-century French literary history and the political engagements of intellectual writers may find it relevant.