Un siècle nrf

Specially designed and produced for the Quinzaine de la Pléiade 2000.

"At about the same time as Hugo leaves, a "crisis of soul" overwhelms French letters, and a crisis of hatred is brewing with the Dreyfus affair. Qi will purge the French taste of Symbolist decadentism? Who is going to occupy such a place that the twentieth century will be his? What name, what school, what illusion should we call this century of violence, rotting hopes, massacres, shameless exploitations, and then exponential development of techniques? "NRF Century"? Jean d'Ormesson says it well: the NRF is neither an author nor a work, "it is a literary community". It cannot be denied that she was present at all the events of her time. ...] Considered as a community of creation and reflection, it has never deserted. It hosted Corydon, the first writings of Aragon, the Return of the U.S.S.S.R., Sartre, Genet, the Celine of the Second Era: there was enough to dynamite any publishing house. But she was more: she was working (and more consciously than one might think in GG's mind) to become a legend. At the very least, it will become an institution. Without turning into an academic. Are there other examples of French literary activity that has lasted for nine decades without incurring the suspicion of being old-fashioned? The NRF has been on the lookout." François Nourissier.