Bernard Frank

Who is Bernard Frank?

Bernard Frank was a Jewish French journalist and writer.

Bernard Frank was raised in a comfortable family, where his father was a bank manager. After his baccalauréat, he started a Khâgne at the Lycée Pasteur but was expelled for bad conduct. He tried again to complete his preparatory classes at the lycée Condorcet, but abandoned them out of boredom during the second trimester.

At the age of 20, he met Jean-Paul Sartre who entrusted him on a trial basis with a column in his magazine, Les Temps Modernes. He remained a periodic contributor, but after publication of his novel Les Rats, he fell out with the magazine's management.

During 1952-1953, he was in charge of the literary column in l'Observateur, as a substitute for Maurice Nadeau. He started his work on the weekly with a double page which he dedicated to Drieu la Rochelle. He then coined the label Hussards, in a December 1952 article published in Les Temps modernes, to designate writers such as Roger Nimier and Antoine Blondin.

He also contributed to le Monde, the Cahier des saisons, the Nouveau Candide, and l'Actualité. "Every autumnn he disparaged the nominees for literary prizes, judging that too many bad novels are published, and mocked colleagues who found genius in the slightest nuance of the season; and just to push it, would double his ridicule just to wind them up."