Malraux, 1941-42: Under the Nazi
Shadow in Southern France

WALTER G. LANGLOIS

IN THE Random House editorial files, which were gixen to
the Columbia Libraries, is a group of letters from the
French novelist Andre .Malraux to Robert Haas, one of the
directors of the New York publishing company. .Most of them
naturally, deal with publication matters. (Malraux—long active in
publishing himself—was unusually sensitive to Haas's needs, and
after one particularly complicated matter had been, worked out,
Haas wrote him: "It is a real pleasure today, as it always has been,
to deal with you. You seent to realize a publisher's problems as
clearly as those of the writer. Believe me, not all writers have this
gift!") However, several letters dating from the dark days of
1941-42 have a wider, more human interest.

France's declaration of war on September 3, 1939, was a direct
result of the lightning invasion of Poland by German armored
units. At the time, Malraux was in southern France doing research
for his new book, the Psychology of Art. General mobilization
was declared, and he immediately returned to Paris to sign up as
a private in the tank corps. The success of Hitler's armored Blitz¬
krieg had convinced him that this arm of the service would play a
crucial role in the forthcoming struggle. While waiting to be called
to active duty, he was not idle. At the end of the month he wrote
Haas to tell him that he had already begun planning a "book about
the present war. Of the same 'substance' as Man's Hope, but more
heavily metaphysical in character, and much less political." He in¬
tends to send it to Haas in sections, as soon as each is completed,
so that translation may begin immediately. He feels that such a
novel would find an audience even in isolationist America, because