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Vercors

Pseudonym used by French artist, illustrator and author Jean Marcel Adolphe Bruller (1902-1991) for his written work from 1942 on, including his first publication, Le silence de la mer (1942 chap; trans Cyril Connolly as Put Out the Light 1944 chap; vt The Silence of the Sea 1944 chap), a novella which includes an early rendering of an anguished "good German"; to publish this he founded the French Resistance press Les Éditions de Minuit. After the experience of World War Two in the Resistance he wrote several moral fables in a manner influenced by Albert Camus (1913-1960). Les Animaux dénaturés (1952; trans Rita Barisse as You Shall Know Them 1953; vt Borderline 1954; vt The Murder of the Missing Link 1958) deals with the discovery of the apis, a new species of ape-man (see Apes as Human), immediately subject to capitalist exploitation (see Race in SF). The human father of an apis infant deliberately murders the child to provide a test case in which he hopes to establish the rapidly Uplifted species' claim to human status; he wins, and is acquitted of murder as the act preceded the declaration of humanity. The novel was loosely adapted for cinema as Skullduggery (1970) directed by Saul David. Colères (1956; trans Rita Barisse as The Insurgents 1957) deals with the search for Immortality by a man who attains it at great personal cost. Sylva (1961; trans Rita Barisse 1962) is an inversion of David Garnett's Lady into Fox (1922): in this case a vixen is changed into a woman by an English bachelor but eventually reverts.

Vercors's postwar allegorical fictions, though thought-generating and occasionally moving, never challenged the fame of his first tale, which is, somewhat unfairly, the only one for which he is well remembered outside France. As an illustrator – which work he signed as Bruller – he showed a rollicking good humour; his illustrations for André Maurois's Patapoufs et Filifers (1930 chap; trans Norman Denny as Fattypuffs and Thinifers 1941) appear in both French and English versions. [JC]

see also: Suspended Animation.

Jean Marcel Adolphe Bruller

born Paris: 26 February 1902

died Paris: 11 June 1991

works (selected)

• Les Animaux dénaturés (Paris: Albin Michel, 1952) [binding unknown/]
  • You Shall Know Them (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, 1953) [trans by Rita Barisse of the above: hb/Jane Pitts]
    • Borderline (London: Macmillan and Company, 1954) [vt of the above trans: hb/C W Bacon]
    • The Murder of the Missing Link (New York: Pocket Books, 1958) [vt of the above trans: pb/Clark Hulins]
• Colères (Paris: Albin Michel, 1956) [binding unknown/]
  • The Insurgents (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1957) [trans by Rita Barisse of the above: hb/Richard Powers]
• Sylva (Paris: Grasset, 1961) [binding unknown/]
  • Sylva (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1962) [trans by Rita Barisse of the above: hb/Jason Kirby]
• Zoo; ou L'Assassin philanthrope, théâtre ["Zoo; Or, the Philanthropic Assassin"] (Paris: Magnard, 2003) [play: first performed 1963: binding unknown/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 19:04 pm on 13 December 2024.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/vercors>