Rugby/ Lily of the valley/ Bordeaux/ Maran/ Goncourt/ Novel/ - Lot 365

Rugby/ Lily of the valley/ Bordeaux/ Maran/ Goncourt/ Novel/ Manuscript/ Martinique. Two works by René Maran (1887-1960), the first writer of color to win the Goncourt: a) the novel "Le coeur serré" (Albin Michel, 1931, 252p, 19x12. A moving account of Jo's tough adolescence in boarding school in Bordeaux, an uprooted boy who finds a little happiness in rugby, as he plays in the "Muguets" school and in the SAB first team; b) one-page handwritten letter from René Maran, dated June 3, 1948. He talks about "Le Coeur Serré", "I painted the twists and turns of a rugby match in one chapter, to prove that I was a master of the art...Beforehand, he had pointed out that "captain of the Sport Athlétique Bordelais" between 1907 and 1912, he had been one of the best third-line forwards in the South-West region". Touching and rare confidences from a great writer, who was a fine rugby player, and above all won the Goncourt prize in 1921 for his novel "Batouala" (Albin Michel), perhaps the very first on negritude.