born Oct. 11, 1885, Bordeaux, France
died Sept. 1, 1970, Paris
French writer.
Mauriac grew up in a pious and strict Catholic family, and he subsequently placed at the heart of all his works the soul grappling with the problems of sin, grace, and salvation. He is best known for his austere, psychological novels, including Young Man in Chains (1913); The Kiss to the Leper (1922); Thérèse (1927); Vipers' Tangle (1932), often considered his masterpiece; and A Woman of the Pharisees (1941). He wrote polemical works against totalitarianism and fascism in the 1930s and worked with the Resistance during World War II. In 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.