B. R. Bruss

René Bonnefoy (16 December 1896 – 30 December 1980), known under the pen names B. R. Bruss and Roger Blondel, was a French science fiction and fantasy writer, and a civil servant under the Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime (1940–44).

Biography

Vichy collaborationist (1940–1944)

Bonnefoy was the editor-in-chief of the Moniteur du Puy-de-Dôme, a newspaper bought by Pierre Laval in 1927.[1] In liaison with Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Bonnefoy expelled Jewish teachers from universities and created a chair on the history of Judaism at the Sorbonne University, entrusted to Henri Labroue.[2]

After Pierre Laval dismissed the team of Je Suis Partout from Radio-Vichy in September 1940 due to their extremism, he entrusted the direction of information to Bonnefoy, who became responsible for developing the themes of the Révolution Nationale over the radio.[3] Upon the return of Laval to power in April 1942, Bonnefoy replaced Paul Marion—then in charge of Information for the Vichy government—as the head of press control.[1]

Novelist (1946–1980)

Due to his past as a Vichy collaborationist, he had to use a pseudonym in order to publish his first novel Et la planète sauta... in 1946.[4] Ten years later, he released the novel Le Mouton Enragé under the pen name Roger Blondel,[5] adapted to the cinema in 1974 as Love at the Top and featuring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jane Birkin.[6] His other well known novels include Bradfer et l'éternel (1964), Un endroit nommé la vie (1973) and Graffiti (1975).[5] In 1978, he declared to the magazine Nouvelles littéraires: "I took the non-serious as center of gravity. The central subject of all my fables is the definition of the primordial sputtering. The one which is spontaneous, banal, overabundant, the one we hear in the street, at the coffee shops, in the subway, all these sonorous graffiti that show us daily that our world is empty..."[5]

He was the father of literary critic Claude Bonnefoy.[5]

Works

Science fiction
  • Et la Panète Sauta... (1946)
  • L'Apparition des Surhommes (1951)
  • S.O.S. Soucoupes (1954)
  • L'Anneau des Djarfs (1961)
  • Le Grand Feu (1964)
  • L'Espionne Galactique (1967)
  • Le Grand Marginal (1971)
  • Penelcoto (1975)
  • Les Espaces enchevetrés (1979)

Fantasy
  • L'oeil était dans la tombe (1955)
  • Maléfices (1956)
  • Nous avons tout peur (1956)
  • Terreur en plein soleil (1958)
  • Le Tambour d'angoisse (1962)
  • Le Bourg Envouté (1964)
  • La Figurine de plomb (1965)
  • Le Mort qu'il faut tuer (1971)
  • L'Objet maléfique (1972)

References
  1. Martin, Marc (1997). Médias et Journalistes de la République (in French). Odile Jacob. p. 246. ISBN 9782738104908.
  2. Broche, François; Muracciole, Jean-François (2017-03-16). Histoire de la collaboration: 1940-1945 (in French). Tallandier. p. 155. ISBN 9791021022669.
  3. Faure, Christian (1989). Le projet culturel de Vichy: folklore et révolution nationale, 1940-1944 (in French). CNRS, Centre régional de publication de Lyon. p. 244. ISBN 9782729703431.
  4. Jacques, Sadoul (1975). Histoire de la science-fiction 2 : domaine français. J'ai Lu. p. 53.
  5. Garcin, Jérôme. "Roger Blondel". Encyclopædia Universalis (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  6. Love at the Top, retrieved 2019-08-26
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