Description

FIRST EDITION.
Presentation copy, with publisher's slip laid in.

Autograph signed letter to Max-Pol Fouchet:

"To Max Pol
his old friend with all his heart
René Char"

Good condition.

René Char joined the Resistance in 1942 under the name of "Capitaine Alexandre". Revolted by the censorship of Vichy and Berlin, he vowed not to publish his poems in occupied France. Nevertheless, from 1944 he contributed to the review Fountain led by Max-Pol Fouchet, based in Algiers and resolutely hostile to the Vichy regime. Char remained loyal to Fountain when, after the Liberation, the magazine moved to Paris, and contributed to 5 of its issues, not only as a poet but also as a columnist. Fountain published, among other things, the first extracts from Hypnos Leaves (1945) and The pulverised poem (1947).
Max-Pol Fouchet, with whom Char kept up an extensive correspondence, described him as "a great poet, a master of dignity, freedom and rectitude, a master whose morals married his poetry and whose poetry married his morals" (Jacques Chirac, "René Char"), La revue des deux mondesJuly 1989, p. 17)