Pierre Gamarra
Pierre Gamarra (pjɛʁ gamaˈʁa; 10 July 1919 – 20 May 2009) was a French poet, novelist and literary critic, a long-time chief editor and director of the literary magazine Europe. Gamarra is best known for his poems and novels for the youth and for narrative and poetical works deeply rooted in his native region of Midi-Pyrénées.
Also recorded as Silvio Michel
Pierre Gamarra

Pierre et Condat · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Name
- Pierre Gamarra
- Birth Name
- Pierre Albert Gamarra
- Born
- 10 July 1919
- Birthplace
- Toulouse, France
- Died
- 20 May 2009
- Place of death
- Argenteuil, France
- Occupation
- Writer
- Awards
- * Hélène Vacaresco Prize for Poetry 1943
- Full name
- Pierre Albert Gamarra.
- Nationality
- France.
- Honours
- Order of the Badge of Honour and Charles Veillon prize in the French language.
- Languages
- French.
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Pierre Gamarra (pjɛʁ gamaˈʁa; 10 July 1919 – 20 May 2009) was a French poet, novelist and literary critic, a long-time chief editor and director of the literary magazine Europe. Gamarra is best known for his poems and novels for the youth and for narrative and poetical works deeply rooted in his native region of Midi-Pyrénées.
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wikidata · Q379958 · wikipedia · Pierre Gamarra
In this article
Biography
Biography
Gamarra worked between 1919 and 2009 across poet, writer, essayist, literary critic and children's writer and 4 further recorded occupations. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Pierre Gamarra • Birth Name — Pierre Albert Gamarra • Born — 10 July 1919 • Birthplace — Toulouse, France • Died — 20 May 2009 • Place of death — Argenteuil, France • Occupation — Writer • Genre — Novel, Children's literature, Fable, Poetry, Essay • Subject — Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées • Notable Works — * La Maison de feu (1948) • Le Maître d'école (1955) • La Mandarine et le Mandarin (1970) • Mon cartable • Awards — * Hélène Vacaresco Prize for Poetry 1943 • National Council of the Resistance Prize 1944 • Veillon International Grand Prize for the Novel 1948 • Literature for the Youth Prize 1961 • SGDL Grand Prize for the Novel 1985 • Website — pierregamarra.com
Life
Life
Pierre Gamarra was born in Toulouse on 10 July 1919. From 1938 until 1940, he was a teacher in the South of France. During the German Occupation, he joined various Resistance groups in Toulouse, involved in the writing and distributing of clandestine publications. This led him to a career as a journalist, and then, more specifically both as a writer and a literary journalist. In 1948, Pierre Gamarra received the first in Lausanne for his first novel, La Maison de feu. Members of the 1948 Veillon Prize jury included writers André Chamson, Vercors, Franz Hellens and Louis Guilloux. The novel is described in Books Abroad as "a beautifully written tale of humble life, which Philippe and Jammes would have liked". From 1945 to 1951, he worked as a journalist in Toulouse. In 1951, Louis Aragon, Jean Cassou and André Chamson offered him a position in Paris as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Europe. He occupied this position until 1974, when he became director of the magazine. Under Pierre Gamarra's direction, Europe continued the project initiated in 1923 by Romain Rolland and other writers. Until 2009, Pierre Gamarra also contributed to most of the magazines's issues with a book review column titled "La Machine à écrire" (The Typewriter). Most of his novels take place in his native South-West of France: he wrote a novel trilogy based on the history of Toulouse and various novels set in that town, along the Garonne or in the Pyrenees. John L. Brown, in World Literature Today, writes that Pierre Gamarra's descriptions of Toulouse, its people and its region were "masterly", "skillfully and poetically" composed "with a vibrant lyricism" and that: Few contemporary French novelists can communicate a feeling for place, melding poetry and realism, myth and history, more movingly and convincingly than Pierre Gamarra. Pierre Gamarra is also the author of The Midnight Roosters, a novel set in Aveyron during the French Revolution. The book was adapted for the French television channel FR3 in 1973. The film, casting Claude Brosset, was shot in the town of Najac. In 1955, he published one of his best known novels, Le Maître d'école; the book and its sequel La Femme de Simon (1962) received critical praise. Reviewing his 1957 short stories collection Les Amours du potier, Lois Marie Sutton deems that, although war affects the plots of many of "all (those) delightful thirteen stories", "it is the light-hearted plot that Gamarra maneuvers best" and that "as in his previous publications, (the author) shows himself to be a master delineator of the life of the average peasant and employee." In 1961, Pierre Gamarra received the Prix Jeunesse for L'Aventure du Serpent à Plumes and in 1985, the SGDL Grand Prize for his novel Le Fleuve Palimpseste. Pierre Gamarra died in Argenteuil on 20 May 2009, leaving a substantial body of work, not yet translated into English for the most part. The Encyclopædia Britannica sees in him a "delightful practitioner with notable drollery and high technical skills" in the art of children's poetry and children's stories. His poems and fables are well known by French schoolchildren.
Selection of works
Selection of works
In French unless otherwise stated
Stories
Stories
• Les Vacances de tonton 36 (2006) • Moustache et ses amis de toutes les couleurs (2005): • New edition of Moustache et ses amis (1974) • Douze tonnes de diamant (1978) • L'Aventure du Serpent à plumes, Prize for the Youth 1961 • Berlurette trilogy: • Berlurette contre Tour Eiffel (1961) • Le Trésor de Tricoire (1959) • Le Mystère de la Berlurette (1957) • La Rose des Karpathes, (1955) • In English • The Bridge on the River Clarinette in Cricket: the magazine for children, vol. 2 No. 11, (La Salle, Illinois) 1975, (p. 22-29) – illustrated by Marilyn Hafner, translated by Paulette Henderson • Meet your author (op. cit. pp. 30–33), tr. translated by Paulette Henderson
Poetry
Poetry
• Mon cartable et autres poèmes à réciter (2006) • Des mots pour une maman (1984) • Voici des maisons (1979) • Les Mots enchantés (1952) • In English • 'My schoolbag', in Berthe Mouchette Celebration, Melbourne Alliance française (2019), p. 74-75
CD
CD
• Les Aventuriers de l'alphabet (2002)
Adaptations
Adaptations
• Les Fariboles de Bolla (1981), original Swedish text and ill. illustrations by Gunilla Bergström, ----
Novels
Novels
• L'Empreinte de l'ours (2010), De Borée (Sayat) • Les Coqs de minuit (new ed. including Rosalie Brousse) 2009, De Borée • Le Maître d'école (new ed. including La Femme de Simon) 2008, De Borée • Les Lèvres de l'été (1986) • Le Fleuve palimpseste PUF (1985); SGDL Prize for the novel • Cantilène occitane (1979) • La Femme et le Fleuve (1952) • L'assassin a le prix Goncourt (1951) • Les Enfants du pain noir (1950) • La Maison de feu (1948), Éditions La Baconnière (Neuchâtel)/Éditions de Minuit, • Reedited De Borée (2014) • Editions of the book since 1948 • Toulouse trilogy: • 72 soleils, 1975 • L'Or et le Sang, 1970 • Les Mystères de Toulouse, 1967 • Illustration — Book cover of Pierre Gamarra's poetry collection Essais pour une malédiction (1943), Hélène Vascaresco Prize for Poetry
Short stories
Short stories
• Les Amours du potier, Éditions La Baconnière (Neuchâtel), 1957 • Un cadavre; Mange ta soupe, Prix National de la Résistance 1944
About Pierre Gamarra
About Pierre Gamarra
In French unless otherwise stated ----
Book reviews in English
Book reviews in English
• List of reviews of Pierre Gamarra's books (Worldcat) including: • Les Lèvres de l'été reviewed by John L. Brown, World Literature Today, Vol. 61, No. 2, The Diary as Art (Spring, 1987), p. 236 (University of Oklahoma) • La Maison de feu reviewed by Georgette R. Schuler, Books Abroad, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring, 1949), p. 156 ----
Literary journals special issues
Literary journals special issues
• Poésie Première "Tarn en Poésie 2003: Avec Pierre Gamarra" • Poésie Première No. 29 (2004)
Interviews
Interviews
• Tohoku University Faculty of Letters Bulletin, No. 27 (Year 2007) (Sendai, Japan) • Vivre en Val-D'Oise, No. 112, November–December 2008 (Argenteuil)
Homages
Homages
• Charles Dobzynski, Michel Delon, Jean Métellus, Roger Bordier, Béatrice Didier, Raymond Jean, Bernard Chambaz, Michel Besnier, Marc Petit, Claude Sicard, Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Henri Béhar, Gérard Noiret, Francis Combes, in Europe No. 966 (October 2009) • Les Cahiers de la Lomagne (Los Quasèrns de la Lomanha), No. 15 (Year 2009), pp. 1 & 16-29 ---- Two streets (one in Argenteuil, one in Montauban) and a cul-de-sac in Boulazac—, two schools (one in Montauban, the other in Bessens)— and two public libraries (one in Argenteuil, the other in Andrest) are named after Pierre Gamarra.
External resources
External resources
• Encyclopædia Britannica about Pierre Gamarra * •; • Encyclopædia Universalis article • Pierre Gamarra in the Dictionary of the workers' movement • Pierre Gamarra on the website of Printemps des Poètes
Career and working life
Career and working life
Gamarra worked as poet, writer, essayist and literary critic, and the authority record catalogues a further 5 occupations under the same name, among them children's writer, French resistance fighter, prose writer, critic and translator. Gamarra held the posts of editor-in-chief. Gamarra worked in French.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1919–2009
The full dated record · 4 entries
1919
Pierre Gamarra born at Toulouse.
1948
Receives Charles Veillon prize in the French language.
2009
Dies at Argenteuil.
2009
Pierre Gamarra died at Argenteuil.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Toulouse.
Birth place
Argenteuil.
Death place
Catalogued output
Books and published writings
These are catalogued publications carrying the name — editions and printings, distinct from the works they contain and from writing about the subject. The 1970s are the densest part of the run, with 14 titles, and that concentration is a fact about what the registers have catalogued rather than a judgement on the work itself. A selection is set out below and the complete run may be opened beneath it.
Les mystères de Toulouse
1967
43 editions carry dates between 1950 and 2009
The run opens with Les enfants du pain noir and closes with L'empreinte de l'ours
The entries follow Open Library
Les enfants du pain noir
1950
Les lilas de saint Lazare
1951
La femme et le fleuve
1951
Le maître d'école
1955
Les jardins d'allah
1961
Solo
1964
Les coqs de minuit
Rosalie Brousse
1965
Six colonnes à la une
1966
The complete catalogue · 46
43 editions carry dates between 1950 and 2009
The run opens with Les enfants du pain noir and closes with L'empreinte de l'ours
The entries follow Open Library
Les enfants du pain noir
1950
Les lilas de saint Lazare
1951
La femme et le fleuve
1951
Le maître d'école
1955
Les jardins d'allah
1961
Solo
1964
Les coqs de minuit
Rosalie Brousse
1965
Six colonnes à la une
1966
Les mystères de Toulouse
1967
L' Énigme du Capitole
1968
La maison de feu
1969
Le Mystère de la Berlurette
1969
La maisson de feu
1970
Pouchkine
1970
L' or et le sang
1970
L' Aventure du serpent à plumes
1972
Chantepierre et Gras-Gras-Gras
1973
La lecture pour quoi faire?
1974
72 soleils
1975
Le Fête chez Peluchette
1976
Le sorbier des oiseaux
1976
Peluchon et ses amis
1976
50000 dollars de chewing-gum
1977
On a mangé l'alphabet!
1978
Cantilène occitane
1979
Mes lectures pour tous
1980
Le maître d'école; suivi de, La femme de Simon
1983
Le fleuve palimpseste
1984
Oc
1984
Chitai︠a︡ i perechityvai︠a︡
1985
La vie prodigieuse de Victor Hugo
1985
Les lèvres de l'été
1986
Les nuits de la Bastille
1988
Des mots pour une maman
1989
Romances de Garonne
1990
La fabuleuse aventure de Cristobal Colon
1991
La vie est belle
1991
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
1994
Vie et prodiges du grand amiral Zheng He
2000
Notre amie George Sand
2004
Notre ami Jules Verne
2005
L'empreinte de l'ours
2009
Fables collections
Fables collections
• Salut, Monsieur de La Fontaine (2005), ill. illustrated by Frédéric Devienne, • La Mandarine et le Mandarin (1970)
Poetry collections
Poetry collections
• Mon Pays l'Occitanie (2009), Cahiers de la Lomagne • Romances de Garonne (1990) • Essais pour une malédiction, Hélène Vacaresco Prize for Poetry 1943
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Pierre Gamarra”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
institutional register
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q379958: Pierre Gamarra
Unverified · Wikimedia Foundation
Where the work is held
Honours and awards
2 honours stand against the name
Order of the Badge of Honour
Charles Veillon prize in the French language
1948
Authority records
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."This is how a countryside schoolteacher who had been studying at the 'École normale primaire', became, through the turmoil of the Phoney War and the Resistance, a poet, a novelist, a journalist living in the region of Paris, member of the editorial board at the magazine Europe for some fifty years." (...) c'est ainsi que l'instituteur rural préparé par ses années d'École normale primaire s'est mué, les bouleversements de la drôle de guerre et la Résistance aidant, en un poète, romancier, journaliste vivant en région parisienne, membre pendant quelque cinquante ans du comité de rédaction de la revue Europe (...) Claude Sicard, "Pierre Gamarra" in Balade en Midi-Pyrénées, sur les pas des écrivains, Alexandrines, 2011 (Excerpt on the Publisher website ).
- 2.La Maison de feu means "The fiery house". The novel takes place in Toulouse during the 1930s.
- 3.Simone Hauert Annabelle, Year 8, number 85, March 1948 (Lausanne), p. 45. See also Le Confédéré (Martigny) number 59, 19 May 1948 p. 2. (Read online).
- 4.Georgette R. Schuler. Review of La Maison de feu. Books Abroad. 23. 2. 156. Spring 1949. 10.2307/40086832.
- 5.Encyclopédia Universalis: Pierre Gamarra .
- 6.For instance, many issues were devoted to an extensive presentation of countries whose literature is not internationally very well known.
- 7.In French La Machine à écrire; since 2009, the column is continued in Europe by Jacques Lèbre.
- 8.See the Journal tables: * from 1924 until 2000: Europe tables (by author) on Paris-III University website * from 2001 until present day: Europe tables (by author by year) on the journal website
- 9."Pierre Gamarra kept for all his life his passion for the regions along the Garonne river: it was present in his poems, novels and stories." ( Pierre Gamarra conservera toute sa vie une passion pour ces terres de Garonne qui reviendront dans ses poèmes, ses romans, ses récits. ) Alain Nicolas, "Pierre Gamarra est mort", L'Humanité, 25 May 2009. (online version )
- 10.John L. Brown, Review of Le Fleuve palimpseste, World Literature Today, Vol. 59, No. 1, Winter, 1985 .
- 11.John L. Brown. Review of Les Lèvres de l'été. World Literature Today. 61. 2. 236. 1987. 10.2307/40143008.
- 12.In French Les Coqs de Minuit.
- 13.Les Coqs de minuit (1950, reed. 2009) De Borée
- 14.TV adaptation (Les Coqs de Minuit) on the Internet Movie Data Base. May 2020.
- 15.French for The Schoolmaster.
- 16.French for Simon's wife, Simon being Simon Sermet, the main character in both novels.
- 17."The manner of telling is so matter of fact that the tragedy takes one unaware.", according to Helen M. Ranson, reviewing Le Maître d'école, in Books Abroad, Vol. 31, No. 1, Winter, 1957,
- 18.French for A Potter's lovers.
- 19.Sutton Lois Marie. Review of Les Amours du potier. Books Abroad. 32. 4. 394. 1958. 10.2307/40098002.
- 20.L'Aventure du Serpent à Plumes, French for "The Adventure of the Feathered Snake", is a novel for the youth.
- 21.In French, Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres pour le roman.
- 22.Le Fleuve palimpseste, French for "The Palimpsest river". The river is the Garonne.
- 23.Article Children's literature (20th century) in Encyclopædia Britannica:
- 24.Mon cartable is for instance chosen in France Inter poetry yearly selection for 2012, read by Guillaume Gallienne: listen online ; or on Édouard Baer's Radio Nova program, "Un enfant, un poème" in December 2017: listening online.
- 25."Mon école", online reading on Radio Nova (2017).
- 26.La Mouche et la Crème, online on Radio Nova .
- 27.Most of Pierre Gamarra's fables are collected in La Mandarine et le Mandarin (1970) and in Salut, Monsieur de La Fontaine (2005), (rewiewed on Le Printemps des poètes' website ).
- 28."His abundant body of work has earned him a prominent place in Children's literature; his poems are read in schools, taught and learned by heart." ( Sa frénésie d'écrire lui confère une place de choix dans la littérature enfantine ; on lit ses poèmes dans les écoles, on les enseigne, on les apprend. ) Guillaume de Toulouse-Lautrec, foreword to Mon pays l'Occitanie, 2009, p. 12.
- 29.The homework that inspires horror in families - BBC News. BBC News. 2016-06-19.
- 30.Projet pédagogique. Les élèves passent aux fables à Mesnils sur Iton.
- 31.Armen Kalfayan, Review of La Femme et le Fleuve, Books Abroad Vol. 26, No. 3, Summer, 1952
- 32.Chronologie. Les Amis de Pierre Gamarra. 2018-06-03.
- 33.Pierre Gamarra Library in Argenteuil page.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Wikidata, structured authority record Q379958: Pierre GamarraWikimedia Foundation
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 15 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
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