Maurice Dekobra

Maurice Dekobra (May 26, 1885 Paris – June 1, 1973 Paris) was a French writer. His real name was Maurice Tessier.[1] Seen as a subversive writer in the 1920s and 1930s, he became one of the best-known French writers between the First and the Second World Wars.[1] His books have been translated into 77 languages.[1] In spite of this, he has now been declared a "total unknown".[1]

Maurice Dekobra in 1927

Biography

At the age of 19, he started his career as a trilingual journalist – French, English, German.[1] During the 1914–18 War he was attached as liaison officer/interpreter first to the Indian army, and later to the United States army. The contacts he made at this time ignited his passion for travel. He attributed the origin of his pen name to an episode in North Africa when he saw a snake charmer with two cobras. Allegedly he began thinking of the "deux cobras", which led him to De-kobra, then Dekobra. The term 'dekobrisme' was coined from his fiction, which used journalistic features in his novels.[1] He chose to live in the United States from 1939 to 1946.[1] Upon returning to France, he started writing whodunits.[1]

Some of his novels were made into films.[2]

Bibliography
  • Les Mémoires de Rat-de-Cave ou Du Cambriolage considéré comme un des beaux-arts (1912)
  • Grain d'Cachou ou Montmartre pendant la guerre ou La petite dame sans camélias (1918)
  • Les Liaisons tranquilles (1920)
  • Minuit... Place Pigalle (1923)
  • Mon coeur au ralenti (1924)
  • La Vénus à roulettes (1925)
  • La Madone des sleepings (1925)
  • La Gondole aux chimères (1926)
  • Les nuits de Walpurgis (1926)
  • Tu seras courtisane (1927)
  • Flammes de velours (1927)
  • Sérénade au Bourreau (1928)
  • Les Tigres Parfumés - Aventures Au Pays Des Maharajahs (1929)
  • Prince ou Pitre (1929)
  • Le Sphinx a parlé... (1930)
  • Aux cent mille sourires (1931)
  • Fusillé à l'aube (1931)
  • Aux cent mille sourires (1931)
  • Pourquoi mourir? (1931)
  • L'Archange aux pieds fourchus (1931)
  • La Volupté éclairant le monde, (1932)
  • Rat-de-cave, cambrioleur (1932)
  • Confucius en pull-over (1934)
  • Madame Joli-Supplice (1935)
  • Macao, enfer du jeu (1938)
  • Émigrés de luxe (1941)
  • Le roman d'un lâche (1942)
  • La Perruche Bleue Journal d'une courtisane sous la terreur nazie (1945)
  • Hamydal le Philosophe (1947)
  • La Prison des Rêves (1947)
  • Satan refuse du monde (1947)
  • Et Eve gifla Adam... ou les aventures d'une Yankee à Montparnasse (1949)
  • Salutations distinguées (1949)
  • La Pavane des poisons (1950)
  • La Rafle est pour ce soir (1953)
  • Monsieur Lambers mourra ce soir (1957)
  • Son altesse mon amant (1958)
  • Passeport diplomatique (1959)
  • Casanova à Manhattan (1960)
  • La Trahison du colonel Redko (1960)
  • L'homme qui mourut deux fois - Les vestales du veau d'or (1960)
  • Secrets de sleeping (1960)

Filmography

Screenwriter

Director
  • La rafle est pour ce soir (1954)
gollark: I would really like ML-ish Rust, honestly.
gollark: Always Rust; Never Go.
gollark: Also, it's easy to learn.
gollark: Because it's Google and therefore good.
gollark: Go is bad.

References
  1. Maurice Dekobra, Voyage au pays de l’oubli Archived November 7, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  2. IMDB
  3. Did Japan really offer Portugal US$100 million for Macau in 1935?, SCMP, Paul French, 8 Feb 2020
  • Davis, Robert Leslie "Maurice Dekobra: grand voyageur et romancier cosmopolite", PhD, Queen's University Belfast, 1970
  • Philippe Collas "Maurice Dekobra: gentleman entre deux mondes", Paris, Seguier, 2001, ISBN 2-84049-264-4
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