The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Duhamel, Georges
(zhôrzh düäml´) (KEY) , 18841966, French novelist and playwright. From Duhamels experience as a surgeon during World War I came Vie des martyrs (1917, tr. The New Book of Martyrs, 1918) and Civilisation (1918, tr. 1919). These collections of sketches are noted for their compassionate accounts of human suffering. He was successful as a dramatist; his Dans lombre des statues was performed in 1912 (tr. In the Shadow of Statues, 1914) and Loeuvre des athlètes in 1920. His fiction includes two cycles of novelsCycle de Salavin (192032, tr. 1936), about a sensitive eccentric, and Chronique des Pasquiers (193345, tr. 193746), about a bourgeois Parisian family. Essays in Scènes de la vie future (1930, tr. America: the Menace, 1931) and other collections reflect Duhamels aversion to overindustrialization.