Clara Malraux ( Goldschmidt; 22 October 1897 – 15 December 1982) was a French writer and translator, and a member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. She was the first wife of the writer

André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...

Early life

She was born Clara Goldschmidt, in Paris, and grew up in Auteuil. Her family were German Jews. Her parents were Otto Jakob Goldschmidt and his wife, the former Grete Heynemann; Clara had two brothers, André and Georges. Her father Otto died in 1910 and her mother committed suicide in 1938. Clara Goldschmidt began translating work from the

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

, some of which was published in a journal called ''L'Action''. It was through this work that she met contemporary French writers such as

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars (), was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (; 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the Surrealism, surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littératur ...

and André Malraux, whom she married on 21 October 1921. They travelled widely in the early years of their marriage. In late 1923, arriving at

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

in Cambodia, they went hunting for antiquities, and were arrested, with André (who was several years younger than his wife) being given a prison sentence, which Clara managed to have overturned even though he lost his appeal on the grounds that the temple was "abandoned property". In 1933, the couple had a daughter, whom they named

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, but they were soon estranged and separated permanently in the late 1930s, though they did not divorce until 1947. André failed to support Clara's desire for a literary career, and in 1936 she followed him to Spain to take part in humanitarian activities linked to the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. However, at around this time, Malraux also had an affair with another writer,

Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin Marie Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin (4 April 1902 – 26 December 1969), commonly known as Louise de Vilmorin, was a French novelist, poet and journalist. Vilmorin was best known as a writer of delicate but wiktionary:en:mordant, mordant tales, of ...

, and Clara had a relationship with a younger man. When André was awarded the 1933

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt ( , "The Goncourt Prize") is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but resul ...

for his novel ''

La Condition Humaine ''La Condition humaine'' is a French expression that has been used as the title for various works: * '' La Condition humaine'', a series of pictures by Rene Magritte * A novel by Andre Malraux, translated as ''Man's Fate ''Man's Fate'' (French: ...

'', she did not attend the ceremony. Clara herself later claimed that she felt she barely knew her husband.

Wartime and Resistance activities

After the fall of France in 1940, Clara and her daughter headed for the ''

zone libre The ''zone libre'' (, ''free zone'') was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered b ...

'', where she joined the Resistance and took part in activities such as forging documents and trying to persuade German soldiers to desert. During this time she had an affair with another Resistance member, a German anti-Fascist named Gérard Krazat, who died at the hands of the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

Post-war career

After the war she returned to Paris, where she began her literary career in earnest, producing novels such as ''Portrait de Grisélidis'' (1945) and ''La Lutte inégale'' (1958). Her autobiography, ''Le Bruit de nos pas'' ("The Sound of Our Footsteps"), was published in six volumes between 1963 and 1979. She had a lengthy relationship with the writer

Jean Duvignaud Jean Duvignaud (22 February 1921 – 17 February 2007) was a French novelist, sociologist and anthropologist. He was born in La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, on February 22, 1921. Duvignaud was a secondary school teacher first at Abbeville, then at ...

, who was nearly thirty years her junior, but they never lived together. They collaborated on a magazine called ''Contemporains''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malraux, Clara 1897 births 1982 deaths Jews in the French resistance Writers from Paris