Justin O'Brien

Background

Justin O'Brien was born on November 26, 1906, in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the son of Quin O'Brien and Ellen (McCortney) O'Brien.

Education

Justin O'Brien graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1924 and the University of Chicago in 1927. He then studied French literature at Harvard, concentrating on adolescence in the French novel. O'Brien received his M. A. from Harvard in 1928, Ph. D. in 1936.

Later O'Brien was named Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French Literature at Columbia.

Career

Justine O'Brien served in the United States Army during World War II and was decorated in 1945 with the Légion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre for his services in the French campaign and for his work as a liaison officer.

O'Brien's scholarship was based on a close reading of original texts and a firm sense of the moral and psychological issues raised by the authors. His translation of the Journals of André Gide, published in four volumes between 1947 and 1951, helped create a remarkably large English-speaking readership for this quintessentially French and occasionally elusive author.

In 1953, the same year that his Index des oeuvres complètes d'André Gide came out, O'Brien published his Portrait of André Gide. The latter work perhaps best illustrates O'Brien's ability to combine analysis with a sympathetic and intuitive understanding of a subtle and controversial writer. O'Brien's object in his Portrait was to do what Aristaeus does in one version of the myth of Proteus: oblige the wily old deity to reveal his true nature. If this endeavor was not entirely successful, it was because of the problems confronting any biographer of a subject who, in the last analysis, did not even know what he really thought or felt and could not anticipate what new changes might come over him. There was nevertheless a pleasing contrast between O'Brien's slightly dry, analytical approach and Gide's subtle personality. The book was thus a perfect introduction to two styles of writing: on the one hand, the style of the elusive artist and, on the other, that of the sharp-minded critic anxious to solve the questions of whether Gide was a Christian or a pagan, a mystic or a sensualist, an anguished puritan or a self-justifying homosexual. O'Brien's own moral concerns shone through and made his Gide, to some extent, a man of whom the New England Puritan tradition would not finally have disapproved.

O'Brien had the greatest impact on English-language readers through his translation of the essays and fiction of Albert Camus. While O'Brien was not invited to translate L'Étranger (The Stranger) or La Peste (The Plague), his renderings of Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1955), La Chute (The Fall, 1957), and L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom, 1958) reveal a mastery of both languages and cultures. O'Brien knew Camus personally and had the good fortune of being able to discuss his translations with him.

In 1958, O'Brien also selected and translated what he called From the N. R. F. - an anthology of works from the most influential literary magazine in France (Nouvelle Revue Française) - and here again the qualities of this perspicacious but slightly self-effacing man came out clearly in his readiness to let the authors speak for themselves.

O'Brien's contribution to the intellectual life of mid-twentieth-century America was not limited to his books and translations. At Columbia, he chaired the Department of French from 1958 to 1963. From 1954 to 1961 he was the general editor of the Romanic Review, after having previously served as reviews editor. He received the Médaille d'Or du Rayonnement Français in 1965. Less than a week after he was named Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French Literature at Columbia, he died in New York City.

Achievements

• Justin O'Brien was decorated in 1945 with the Légion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre for his services in the French campaign and for his work as a liaison officer. O'Brien is famous through his remarkable translation of the Journals of André Gide and the essays and fiction of Albert Camus. He received the Médaille d'Or du Rayonnement Français in 1965.

Works

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  • The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library)

    ((Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From one of the most bril...)

  • Madeleine

    (Madeleine is the story of a great writer's marriage, a de...)

  • The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

    (One of the most influential works of this century, The My...)

  • The Journals of Andre Gide, 1889-1949: 1924-1949

    (Journal entries depict Andre Gide's feelings about litera...)

  • The Fall

    (Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a...)

  • Journals, Vol. 4: 1939-1949

Connections

On January 24, 1931, Justine O'Brian married Isabel Ireland. They had no children.

Father:

Quin O'Brien

Mother:

Ellen McCortney

Wife:

Isabel (Ireland) O'Brien