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Henri Barbusse was born on May 17, 1873 in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. Son of Adrien and Annie (Benson) Barbusse. His mother was an Englishwoman, his father was a French journalist and playwright. Although he grew up in a small town, he left for Paris in 1889, at age 16.
He graduated from the College Rollin (Collège-lycée Jacques-Decour) in 1893.
He worked at civil service jobs after college;, was a journalist, editor, and author. He was also a founder of Clarte, a passivist/communist organization, formed the Republican Association of Ex-Service Men in France. He was a founder and editor of Monde, a left-wing newspaper, in 1928-1935. He served in the French Army from 1893 till 1894 and served in the infantry of the French Army during World War I.
He won prizes for his literary and dramatic efforts during his schooling, and became a protege of the French symbolist poet Catulle Mendes. He won Prix Goncourt from the Academie Goncourt of France in 1916 for "Under Fire: The Story of a Squad".
He more openly advocated communism, and penned books about the Soviet Union and one of its dictators, Josef Stalin.
Quotations:
"Only the idolatrous and the weak have need of illusion as of a remedy."
"All that we can remember is almost nothing. Memory is greater than we are, but memory is living and mortal as well."
"Truth is simple. They who say that truth is complicated deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them."
He was a member of Revue de la Paix, Paix par le Droit, Clarte, Republican Association of Ex-Service Men in France.
Quotes from others about the person
Albert Einstein, in a letter to Victor Margueritte (19 October 1932):"Barbusse is a fine man, but unfortunately a poor performer. He allowed himself to be so completely taken in by the Bolshevists that the congress lost its suprapartisan character".
Lewis Gannet, in referring to the Second World War, in I saw it Happen (1942): "We shall be hearing and reading of this war for decades to come. No one of us can yet guess who will be its Tolstoys, its Barbusses, its Remarques and its Hemingways".
"Again, Barbusse" in TIME magazine (12 April 1926): "At Paris Novelist Henri Barbusse, winner of the Prix Goncourt with his pen and the Croix de Guerre with his sword, occupies a position unique and anomalous. He is always bringing some unpleasant fact to light, and his genius is always just sufficient to make the expose nauseatingly unforgettable. With such a man what is to be done?"
