Maria, F. Cavanna

The story told in the pages of Maria is a description of events that have not yet happened in the life of the one who tells them, but which follow almost inevitably from what we know about him, about his ancestors, about his character, about the previous episodes of his biography. All this gives him and the protagonists of his "saga" a sufficiently accurate picture to allow extrapolation into the not-too-distant future. The book is a continuation of the title n Italians.

It is therefore, among other things, the first autobiographical-fictional essay of all time.

François Cavanna, * February 22, 1923, + January 29, 2014 – the son of an illiterate Italian immigrant and a French cleaning woman, spent his childhood before the Second World War in Nogent-sur-Marne. Teachers at the church school soon discovered his extraordinary intelligence and literary talents. He came first in the cantonal school competition and received a scholarship and a recommendation for further studies. After the liberation, he began working for the left-wing newspaper Libération. In 1954, he collaborated with the new magazine Zéro, where he soon became editor-in-chief. He was not only gifted in literature, but also a great draftsman and cartoonist. After the death of the magazine's founder, Cavanna teamed up with Georges Bernier (who renamed himself "Professor Choron") and with a few friends founded the new satirical weekly Harta-Kiri in 1960. It had the effect of a grenade explosion on the French newspaper scene. It had the subtitle "A bad and stupid magazine" and published a caricature of President De Gaulle on the front page every week. It broke all previous taboos, took no crap from anyone, and in the 1960s had a strong influence on student youth. In 1969, it became the weekly Hara-Kiri Hebdo, and the comic monthly Charlie began to be published. After the death of General De Gaulle, Hara-Kiri published the highly irreverent cartoon "The Tragic Ball in Colombey - One Dead". The weekly magazine Hara-Kiri Hebdo is withdrawn from sale and banned. It continues under the name Charlie-Hebdo, which can be understood as a symbolic nod to the deceased general. François Cavanna established a very distinctive narrative style in which he addresses the reader as an old friend. He always defends republican values ​​and expresses a deep love for the French language. In addition, he defends animals or, for example, Esperanto. "Don't you want Esperanto? You will have English, that's right for your stomach!" In 1968, the weekly Charlie Hebdo is the spokesperson for the student struggles of the time against consumer society, for ecology, feminism and anti-militarism. (From this shift in French society and social sentiment, it is clear that the Paris Spring of that time had to coincide with the Prague Spring, as Czechoslovak society was still far from reaching that point). The popular French humorist Pierre Desproges, known for his dark humor and sense of absurdity, compares Cavanna to a modern Rabelais. He is, according to him, one of the last honest men of this rotten century and the inventor of the new printing press. In 2008, François Cavanna opened a newly restored library in Nogent-sur-Marne, where he used to go every week to get books as a child. He received the Interrallié literary prize for his memoir of the post-war period, Les Ruskoffs (The Russians).