Rebroadcast from 02/09/2020
“The Resistance is perhaps the period of my life where I learned the most things. It is there that I saw the most dedication, courage, fraternity” said Joseph Kessel.
However, Joseph Kessel, writer and journalist, had already experienced many adventures, trips, risks, even aerial combat, exceptional loves and friendships before the Second World War. But for this Russian Jew, born by chance in Argentina, a long-time stateless immigrant, who had made France his adopted homeland of literature, the fight against Hitler and for freedom seemed obvious in a time of peril.
Resistance in France… Then, narrowly escaping arrest, in January 1943, he managed after a long journey to reach England – something so few French intellectuals have done. Kessel’s wish: to fight in the ranks of General de Gaulle’s Free France.
But, between interrogations by the intelligence services and long drinking sessions in London bars, the fiery and anxious Kessel will have to wait, and wait some more, before being able to go into battle.
The wait will not be in vain: it is in these hours of uncertainty that Joseph Kessel and his nephew, Maurice Druon, will write THE song of the Resistance, Le Chant des Partisans, of which he will say: “Perhaps it is there all that will remain of us.”
The guest: Olivier Weber, writer and reporter, winner of numerous prizes including the Albert Londres prize and the Joseph Kessel prize. Author of “Dictionnaire Amoureux de Joseph Kessel” published by Plon in 2019.
The fiction: “1943. Joseph Kessel joins Free France” by Thady Macnamara
With the voices of:
- Joseph Kessel as Grégoire Monsaingeon
- Anna Marly : Tatiana Spivakova
- Germaine Sablon as Nathalie Lacroix
- André Bernheim as Patrice Bornand
- Maurice Druon as Hector Manuel
- The England captain: Kester Lovelace
As well as the production team:
- Sound effects: Bertrand Amiel
- Sound recording, editing and mixing: Claude Niort and Mathieu Tourren
- Assistant director: Justine Dibling
- Director: Cédric Aussir
To read: by Olivier Weber, the biography “Kessel: the eternal nomad” published by Arthaud in 2006 as well as the novels and stories of Joseph Kessel published by Gallimard in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.
Musique : Orion Sun Mary Jane
France
