Introduction

Paulhan’s essay, published in 1952, was the most sustained criticism of the prevailing atmosphere of the post-war years in France. In particular it is directed at the Communist dominated Comité national des écrivains (of which Paulhan had been a member) that carried out a witch hunt of all those intellectuals and writers it considered to have been guilty of collaboration. In particular the introduction compares Paulhan’s position with that of Camus and Mauriac. It draws on hitherto unexplored archival material and provides a major contribution to our understanding of this period.