Kessel, Joseph

(1898-1979)

   writer, journalist

   Born in Clara, Argentina, to a family of Russian-Jewish origin, Joseph Kessel, who became involved with aviation in World War I (1916), used the fraternal military and combat milieu as a central theme in his novels and in a biography. This action- novel literature was also often the material of his reporting. His curiosity was for a world that he knew how to evoke in a realistic and lively fashion: Fortune carrée (1955) recalls Yemen; Le Lion (1958) takes place in Kenya. Skillful at portraying historical scenes (Tous n'étaient pas des anges, 1963, on World War II; Terre d'amour et de feu, 1966, on the Israeli experience), Kessel also reveals a sense of individuality (Belle de jour, 1929) or that of a community (Les Cavaliers, 1967; Vladivostok, les temps sauvages, 1975). He was elected to the académie FRANÇAISE in 1962.