Andre Gide

Born on November 22, 1869 in France, Andre Paul Guillaume Gide was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947. His works had its foundation in the symbolist movement and advanced to anti-colonialism between WWI and WWII.
He is famous for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works. Gide writes about the conflict and reconciliation between two sides of his personality. Gide felt he was torn apart by a straitlaced education and a narrow moralism. His work is the investigation of empowerment in the face of puritanical constraints and he writes about his efforts to find intellectual, sexual and social honesty.
Gide founded the publication Nouvelle Revue Francaise (The New French Review) in 1908. He also met Marc Allegret (age 15) who became his lover. Gide adopted Marc, they fled to London to escape retribution, and Gide's papers were burned by his wife. In 1918 Dorothy Bussy became a great friend to Gide and translated his works into English.
In 1923 Gide published a book on Fyodor Dostoyevsky, defended pederasty in the public edition of Corydon, and received condemnations. In 1923 Gide sired a daughter, Catherine, who was his only child and the product of his only liaison with a woman. In 1924 he published his autobiography Unless the seed dies. He began to protest for more humane conditions for criminals in 1925.
He wrote Travels in the Congo and Return from Chad which criticized French business interests and began to reform French colonialism. He was briefly a communist in the 1930s but then began to condemn communism. He contributor to The God that Failed. Gide lived in Tunis until the end of WWII. He died in Paris on February 19, 1951 and has the distinction of having his works placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Roman Catholic Church.