Francis Carco

Francis Carco, photo by Lorelle

François Carcopino-Tusoli (3 July 1886 – 26 May 1958), better known by his pen name Francis Carco, was a French author, poet and journalist.

Biography

Francis Carco was born at Nouméa, New Caledonia. He was a poet, belonging to the Fantaisiste school, a novelist, a dramatist, and art critic for L'Homme libre and Gil Blas. During World War I he became aviation pilot at Étampes, after studying at the aviation school there. His works are picturesque, painting as they do the street life of Montmartre, and being written often in the argot of Paris. He has been called the "romancier des apaches." His memoir, The Last Bohemia: From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter, contains reminiscences of Bohemian life in Paris during the early years of the twentieth century.

He had an affair with the short story writer Katherine Mansfield in February 1915. The narrator Raoul Duquette of her story Je ne parle pas français (who has a cynical attitude to love and sex) is partly based on him, and her story An Indiscreet Journey is based on her journey through the war zone to spend four nights with Corporal Francis Caro near Gray. She saved as a memo of him a fake letter from "Julie Boiffard" asking her to visit (which is now held in the Turnbull Library). She also wrote a letter to her husband from Carco's Paris flat on 8/9 May 1915.

Carco held the ninth seat at Académie Goncourt from 1937–1958. He is buried in Cimetière de Bagneux.

Works

• Instincts (1911)
• Jésus-la-Caille (novel, 1914)
• Les Innocents (1917)
• Au coin des rues (tales, 1918, 1922)
• Les Malheurs de Fernande (sequel to Jésus-la-Caille 1918)
• Les Mystères de la Morgue ou les Fiancés du IVº arrondissement. Roman gai (1918)
• L'Equipe (1919)
• La Poésie (1919)
• Maman Petitdoigt (1920)
• Francis Carco, raconté par lui-meme (1921; in the collection Ceux dont on parle, directed by Marc Saunier)
• Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre (1922)
• L'homme traqué (1922; Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française)
• Vérotchka l'Étrangère ou le Gout du malheur (1923)
• Le Roman de François Villon (1926), a heavily fictionalised biography of the 15th-century poet.
• Brumes (1935)

See also

• Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

External links

•  French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Auteur:Francis Carco
• Quotations related to Francis Carco at Wikiquote (French)