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95-587: Vintage Classics is a paperback publisher of contemporary fiction and non-fiction. It is part of the Vintage imprint, which is itself a part of Random House Publishers. The famous American publisher Alfred A. Knopf (1892–1984) founded Vintage Books in the United States in 1954 as a paperback home for the authors published by his company. Vintage was launched in the United Kingdom in 1990 and works independently from

190-620: A lung embolism . He was a heavy smoker and had cancer. He was cremated and his ashes buried in the Verrières-le-Buisson (Essonne) cemetery. In recognition of his contributions to French culture, his ashes were moved to the Panthéon in Paris during 1996, on the twentieth anniversary of his death. There is a large body of critical commentary on Malraux's literary œuvre , including his extensive writings on art. However, some of his works, including

285-609: A battalion of former resistance fighters to Alsace-Lorraine , where they fought alongside the First Army . During the war, he worked on his last novel, The Struggle with the Angel , the title drawn from the story of the Biblical Jacob . The manuscript was destroyed by the Gestapo after his capture in 1944. A surviving first section, titled The Walnut Trees of Altenburg , was published after

380-479: A book on Malraux in 2005, suggests that he had Tourette syndrome , although that has not been confirmed. The young Malraux left formal education early, but he followed his curiosity through the booksellers and museums in Paris, and explored the city's rich libraries as well. Malraux's first published work, an article entitled "The Origins of Cubist Poetry", appeared in Florent Fels ' magazine Action in 1920. This

475-842: A company he bought a person." In 2003, Random House reentered the distribution business. Coinciding with the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the publishing industry was hit hard with weak retail sales. In May 2008, Random House CEO Peter Olson stepped down and was replaced by Markus Dohle . In October of that year, Doubleday, a division of Random House, announced that they would lay off 16 people, representing approximately 10% of its workforce. In early December 2008, which became known as Black Wednesday in publishing circles, many publishers including Random House took steps by restructuring their divisions and laying off employees. The reorganization consolidated and created three divisions, including Random House Publishing Group, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Crown Publishing Group. Susan Kamil

570-457: A conventional idea of China with coolies, bamboo shoots, opium smokers, destitutes, and prostitutes", which were the standard French stereotypes of China at the time. The work was awarded the 1933 Prix Goncourt . After the breakdown of his marriage with Clara, Malraux lived with journalist and novelist Josette Clotis , starting in 1933. Malraux and Josette had two sons: Pierre-Gauthier (1940–1961) and Vincent (1943–1961). During 1944, while Malraux

665-478: A deserter from the French Foreign Legion had been reduced to nothing as his captors blinded him and left him tied to a stake starving, a stark picture of human degradation. The three Europeans escape, but Perken is wounded and dies of an infection. Through ostensibly an adventure novel, La Voie Royale is in fact a philosophical novel concerned with existential questions about the meaning of life. The book

760-516: A diversification strategy. Random House acquired the paperback book publisher Ballantine Books in 1973. RCA sold Random House to Advance Publications in 1980. Random House began publishing audiobooks in 1985. In 1988, Random House acquired Crown Publishing Group . Also in 1988, McGraw-Hill acquired Random House's Schools and Colleges division. In 1998, Bertelsmann AG bought Random House and merged it with Bantam Doubleday Dell and it soon went global. In 1999, Random House acquired

855-510: A high-profile minister. On 23 May 1961, André Malraux's two sons, Gauthier and Vincent, were killed in a car accident. Among many initiatives, Malraux launched an innovative (and subsequently widely imitated) program to clean the blackened façades of notable French buildings, revealing the natural stone underneath. He also created a number of maisons de la culture in provincial cities and worked to preserve France's national heritage by promoting industrial archaeology . An intellectual who took

950-566: A huge collection of books both as a cultural minister for the nation and as a man for himself. Malraux was an outspoken supporter of the Bangladesh liberation movement during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh and despite his age seriously considered joining the struggle. When Indira Gandhi came to Paris in November 1971, there was extensive discussion between them about the situation in Bangladesh. During this post-war period, Malraux published

1045-630: A hundred percent subsidiary of Bertelsmann instead but de facto is led by the same management. It is the second largest book publisher in Germany with more than 40 imprints, including historic publishing houses Goldmann and Heyne Verlag , as well as C. Bertelsmann, the publishing house from which today's Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA would eventually evolve. Verlagsgruppe Random House is headquartered in Munich (with additional locations in Gütersloh (where Bertelsmann

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1140-467: A lot but very little read" (this is especially true in Anglophone countries) and the radical implications of his thinking are often missed. A particularly important aspect of Malraux's thinking about art is his explanation of the capacity of art to transcend time. In contrast to the traditional notion that art endures because it is timeless ("eternal"), Malraux argues that art lives on through metamorphosis –

1235-399: A major re-launch of the list, the most high-profile or perhaps controversial aspect of which is the idea of 'twinning' modern authors with established classic ones to provide new ways of thinking about the books, such as pairing Ian McEwan's Atonement with Henry James's What Maisie Knew and Dante's Inferno with Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater . Vintage Classics have also moved away from

1330-523: A novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences. In July 1937 he attended the Second International Writers' Congress, the purpose of which was to discuss the attitude of intellectuals to the war, held in Valencia , Barcelona and Madrid and attended by many writers including Ernest Hemingway , Stephen Spender and Pablo Neruda . Malraux's participation in major historical events such as

1425-746: A progressive lawyer, he helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper L'Indochine to champion Vietnamese independence. After falling foul of the French authorities, Malraux claimed to have crossed over to China where he was involved with the Kuomintang and their then allies, the Chinese Communists, in their struggle against the warlords in the Great Northern Expedition before they turned on each other in 1927, which marked

1520-452: A sensibility that was both tragic and awe-inspiring as one surveyed all of the cultural treasures of the world, a mystical sense of humanity's place in a universe that was as astonishingly beautiful as it was mysterious. Malraux argued that as death is inevitable and in a world devoid of meaning, which thus was "absurd", only art could offer meaning in an "absurd" world. Malraux argued that art transcended time as art allowed one to connect with

1615-423: A series of semi-autobiographical works, the first entitled Antimémoires (1967). A later volume in the series, Lazarus , is a reflection on death occasioned by his experiences during a serious illness. La Tête d'obsidienne (1974) (translated as Picasso's Mask ) concerns Picasso, and visual art more generally. In his last book, published posthumously in 1977, L'Homme précaire et la littérature , Malraux propounded

1710-470: A share. This was a factor in decisions by other publishing companies, including Simon & Schuster , to later go public. American publishers Alfred A. Knopf , Inc. and Beginner Books were acquired by Random House in 1960, followed by Pantheon Books in 1961; works continue to be published under these imprints with editorial independence, such as Everyman's Library , a series of classical literature reprints. In 1965, RCA bought Random House as part of

1805-679: A strong foothold: food, lifestyle, health, wellness, business, and Christian." "We must invest even more aggressively in title-level and scaled marketing programs, capabilities and partnerships", she added. In 2019, Penguin Random House acquired British children's book publisher Little Tiger Group, including Tiger Tales Press, a U.S. subsidiary, and added it to Random House Children's Books. Penguin Random House announced an agreement to purchase Boom! Studios in July 2024, where Boom! would become part of Random House Worlds. The publisher's main office in

1900-553: A suburb southwest of Paris. Vilmorin was best known as a writer of delicate but mordant tales, often set in aristocratic or artistic milieu. Her most famous novel was Madame de... , published in 1951, which was adapted into the celebrated film The Earrings of Madame de... (1953), directed by Max Ophüls and starring Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio de Sica. Vilmorin's other works included Juliette , La lettre dans un taxi , Les belles amours , Saintes-Unefois , and Intimités . Her letters to Jean Cocteau were published after

1995-507: Is based in Glenfield , Auckland , while Random House's Indian headquarters are located in New Delhi. Verlagsgruppe Random House was established after Bertelsmann's 1998 acquisition of Random House, grouping its German imprints (until then operating as Verlagsgruppe Bertelsmann) under the new name; before April 2020, it has explicitly no legal part of the worldwide Penguin Random House company and

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2090-789: Is being reintegrated with the main Penguin Random House company and now known as Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial is Random House's Spanish-language division, targeting markets in Spain and Hispanic America . It is headquartered in Barcelona with locations in Argentina , Chile , Colombia , Mexico , Venezuela , Uruguay , and the United States. From 2001 until November 2012, it

2185-683: Is headquartered), Cologne , and Aßlar ), employs about 850 people, and publishes roughly 2,500 titles per year. Following the formation of Penguin Random House, a Penguin Verlag (with no legal connection to Penguin Books) was founded for the German market in 2015, as part of the Verlagsgruppe Random House. With Bertelsmann acquiring full ownership of Penguin Random House in April 2020, Verlagsgruppe Random House

2280-593: Is led by Hong, a Chinese assassin committed to revolutionary violence for the sake of violence, and only the Communists are portrayed relatively favorably. Much of the dramatic tension between the novel concerns a three-way struggle between the hero, Garine and Borodin who is only interested in using the revolution in China to achieve Soviet foreign policy goals. The fact that the European characters are considerably better drawn than

2375-781: Is located in Rushden in Northamptonshire. In 1989, Century Hutchinson was folded into the British Random House Group , briefly known as Random Century (1990–92), Century became an imprint of the group's Cornerstone Publishing. The Random House Group also operates branches in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (as a joint venture under the name Random House Struik ), and India as part of its overseas structure. In Australia offices are in Sydney and Melbourne . In New Zealand it

2470-541: Is narrated by an unnamed Frenchman who travels from Saigon to Hong Kong to Canton to meet an old friend named Garine who is a professional revolutionary working with Mikhail Borodin , who in real life was the Comintern's principal agent in China. The novel alternates between depictions of Chinese nationalist militancy and British imperial anxieties. The Kuomintang are depicted rather unflatteringly as conservative Chinese nationalists uninterested in social reform, another faction

2565-513: The Organisation armée secrète (OAS), which set off a bomb to his apartment building that failed to kill its intended target, but did leave a four-year-old girl who was living in the adjoining apartment blinded by the shrapnel. Ironically, Malraux was a lukewarm supporter of de Gaulle's decision to grant independence to Algeria , but the OAS was not aware of this, and had decided to assassinate Malraux as

2660-497: The Übermensch , the heroic, exalted man who would create great works of art and whose will would allow him to triumph over anything. T. E. Lawrence , aka "Lawrence of Arabia", has a reputation in France as the man who was supposedly responsible for France's troubles in Syria in the 1920s. An exception was Malraux who regarded Lawrence as a role model, the intellectual-cum-man-of-action and

2755-526: The Babar children's books. Random House also hired editors Harry Maule, Robert Linscott, and Saxe Commins, and they brought authors such as Sinclair Lewis and Robert Penn Warren with them. Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the American College Dictionary , which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary . In October 1959, Random House went public at $ 11.25

2850-620: The French Protectorate of Cambodia . Angkor Wat is a huge 12th century temple situated in the old capital of the Khmer Empire . Angkor ( Yasodharapura ) was "the world's largest urban settlement" in the 11th and 12th centuries supported by an elaborate network of canals and roads across mainland Southeast Asia before decaying and falling into the jungle. The discovery of the ruins of Angkor Wat by Westerners (the Khmers had never fully abandoned

2945-567: The Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel to record all goods based on archival sources created by human kind throughout France. Film, television and music took less of Malraux's time, and the changing demographics caused by immigration from the Third World stymied his efforts to promote French high culture, as many immigrants from Muslim and African nations did not find French high culture that compelling. A passionate bibliophile, Malraux built up

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3040-642: The vilayet of Aleppo in what is now modern Syria. As Lawrence had first made his reputation in the Near East digging up the ruins of an ancient civilization, it was only natural that Malraux should go to the Far East to likewise make his reputation in Asia digging up ancient ruins. Lawrence considered himself a writer first and foremost while also presenting himself as a man of action, the Nietzschean hero who triumphs over both

3135-555: The 1950s and 1960s, but was never awarded. In 1969 he was the main candidate considered for the prize along with Samuel Beckett . His candidacy was supported by some members of the Nobel committee, but was rejected for political reasons by another member, and the Swedish Academy ultimately decided that Beckett should be awarded. Malraux died in Créteil , near Paris, on 23 November 1976 from

3230-707: The American imprint although both are part of the international publishing group, Random House. Vintage in the UK is run by a small team of people working in the Random House offices in Pimlico in London. Vintage is now a paperback publisher of contemporary fiction and non-fiction, publishing writers such as Philip Roth , Ian McEwan , Richard Yates , Willa Cather, Martin Amis and Toni Morrison . There are many Booker and Nobel Prize-winning authors on

3325-424: The Anglophone world. Ulysses transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it acquired Smith and Haas, and Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 1956. The acquisition of Smith and Haas added authors, including William Faulkner , Isak Dinesen , André Malraux , Robert Graves , and Jean de Brunhoff , who wrote

3420-745: The Arab Revolt and the British liaison officer with the Emir Faisal, but rather as a romantic, lyrical writer as writing was Lawrence's first passion, which also described Malraux very well. Although Malraux courted fame through his novels, poems and essays on art in combination with his adventures and political activism, he was an intensely shy and private man who kept to himself, maintaining a distance between himself and others. Malraux's reticence led his first wife Clara to later say she barely knew him during their marriage. In 1923, aged 22, Malraux and Clara left for

3515-590: The Asian characters reflected Malraux's understanding of China at the time as more of an exotic place where Europeans played out their own dramas rather than a place to be understood in its own right. Initially, Malraux's writings on Asia reflected the influence of Orientalism presenting the Far East as strange, exotic, decadent, mysterious, sensuous and violent, but Malraux's picture of China grew somewhat more humanized and understanding as Malraux disregarded his Orientalist and Eurocentric viewpoint in favor of one that presented

3610-592: The Canadian distributor of Random House Books. In 1986, Random House of Canada established its own indigenous Canadian publishing program that has become one of the most successful in Canadian history. Until January 2012, it used to hold a 25% stake in McClelland & Stewart , with the remaining 75% being controlled by the University of Toronto . It is now the sole owner of McClelland & Stewart. Takeda Random House Japan

3705-612: The Chinese as fellow human beings. The second of Malraux's Asian novels was the semi-autobiographical La Voie Royale which relates the adventures of a Frenchman Claude Vannec who together with his Danish friend Perken head down the royal road of the title into the jungle of Cambodia with the intention of stealing bas-relief sculptures from the ruins of Hindu temples. After many perilous adventures, Vannec and Perken are captured by hostile tribesmen and find an old friend of Perken's, Grabot, who had already been captured for some time. Grabot,

3800-488: The Crown Publishing Group. According to Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., the two lines "will retain their distinct editorial identities." McIntosh explained some of the motivation behind the merger in a memo to employees, writing, "Book discovery and buying patterns continue to shift, resulting in growth opportunities in the nonfiction categories in which Crown in particular already has

3895-528: The French Government. Malraux himself was not a pilot, and never claimed to be one, but his leadership qualities seem to have been recognized because he was made Squadron Leader of the 'España' squadron. Acutely aware of the Republicans' inferior armaments, of which outdated aircraft were just one example, he toured the United States to raise funds for the cause. In 1937 he published L'Espoir (Man's Hope),

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3990-576: The Old Testament. Saudi Arabia and Yemen were both remote, dangerous places that few Westerners visited at the time, and what made the expedition especially dangerous was while Malraux was searching for the lost cities of Sheba, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, and the ensuing Saudi–Yemeni war greatly complicated Malraux's search. After several weeks of flying over the deserts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Malraux returned to France to announce that

4085-464: The Renaissance to modern times. Malraux also initiated the series Arts of Mankind , an ambitious survey of world art that generated more than thirty large, illustrated volumes. When de Gaulle returned to the French presidency in 1958, Malraux became France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs , a post he held from 1958 to 1969. On 7 February 1962, Malraux was the target of an assassination attempt by

4180-516: The Spanish Civil War has tended to distract attention from his important literary achievement. Malraux saw himself first and foremost as a writer and thinker (and not a "man of action" as biographers so often portray him) but his extremely eventful life – a far cry from the stereotype of the French intellectual confined to his study or a Left Bank café – has tended to obscure this fact. As a result, his literary works, including his important works on

4275-451: The Spanish Civil War inevitably brought him determined adversaries as well as strong supporters, and the resulting polarization of opinion has colored, and rendered questionable, much that has been written about his life. Fellow combatants praised Malraux's leadership and sense of camaraderie While André Marty of the Comintern called him as an "adventurer" for his high profile and demands on

4370-632: The Spanish Republican government. The British historian Antony Beevor also claims that "Malraux stands out, not just because he was a mythomaniac in his claims of martial heroism – in Spain and later in the French Resistance – but because he cynically exploited the opportunity for intellectual heroism in the legend of the Spanish Republic." In any case, Malraux's participation in events such as

4465-607: The United States is located in Penguin Random House Tower , which was constructed in 2009 at 1745 Broadway in Manhattan . The 684-foot (210 m) building spans the west side of the block between West 55th and West 56th Streets. The building's lobby showcases floor-to-ceiling glassed-in bookcases, which are filled with books published by the company and its subsidiaries. Prior to moving to Penguin Random House Tower,

4560-642: The Vintage list, including writers such as Iris Murdoch , who won the Booker Prize for her novel, The Sea, the Sea , and also has been longlisted in the category of Lost Man Booker Prize for her novel, A Fairly Honourable Defeat . The imprint also publishes a huge variety of books while Vintage Classics publishes the great authors of the past. Vintage Classics has existed since the inception of Vintage and publishes Graham Greene , Harper Lee , Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf , among others. In August 2007 they had

4655-442: The arts very seriously, Malraux saw his mission as Culture Minister to preserve France's heritage and to improve the cultural levels of the masses. Malraux's efforts to promote French culture mostly concerned renewing old or building new libraries, art galleries, museums, theatres, opera houses, and maisons de la culture (centres built in provincial cities that were a mixture of a library, art gallery and theatre). In 1964 he created

4750-602: The attack on Stuttgart . André's half-brother, Claude, a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent, was also captured by the Germans, and executed at Gross-Rosen concentration camp in 1944. Otto Abetz was the German Ambassador, and produced a series of "black lists" of authors forbidden to be read, circulated or sold in Nazi occupied France. These included anything written by a Jew, a communist, an Anglo-Saxon or anyone else who

4845-413: The beginning of the Chinese Civil War that was to last on and off until 1949. In fact, Malraux did not first visit China until 1931 and he did not see the bloody suppression of the Chinese Communists by the Kuomintang in 1927 first-hand as he often implied that he did, although he did do much reading on the subject. On his return to France, Malraux published The Temptation of the West (1926). The work

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4940-433: The children's audiobook publisher Listening Library, and sold its distribution division. In 2001, Phyllis E. Grann joined Random House as vice chairman. Grann was the CEO for Putnam and had grown that house from $ 10 million in revenue in 1976, to more than $ 200 million by 1993 and without increasing their title output. A publishing insider commented that then CEO Peter Olson was, "I think maybe instead of buying

5035-428: The company in Asia . Random House Home Video was a home video unit established by Random House in 1983 as Random House Video until 1988, the publisher of Dr. Seuss 's books. It was renamed in 1984. Random House's home video division was currently the distributor of some shows, such as Sesame Street (1986–1994), The Busy World of Richard Scarry (1993–2005), Arthur (1996–2006), and The Berenstain Bears ,

5130-769: The company was headquartered at 457 Madison Avenue , 20 East 57th Street, and 201 East 50th Street, all in Manhattan. Random House, Inc. maintains several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. The Random House Group is one of the largest general book publishing companies in the United Kingdom ; it is based in London. The group comprises nine publishing companies: Cornerstone Publishing, Vintage Publishing , Ebury Publishing , Transworld Publishers , Penguin Random House Children's, Penguin Random House UK Audio, Penguin Michael Joseph, Penguin Press, and Penguin General. Its distribution business services its own imprints, as well as 40 other UK publishers through Grantham Book Services. The Random House archive and library

5225-448: The crime was of no consequence. Clara, his wife, started a campaign for his acquittal and a number of notable arts and literary figures signed a petition defending Malraux: among them were François Mauriac , André Breton and André Gide . Malraux had his sentence reduced to a year, and then suspended. Malraux's experiences in Indochina led him to become highly critical of the French colonial authorities there. In 1925, with Paul Monin,

5320-425: The death of both correspondents. After Louise's death, Malraux spent his final years with her relative, Sophie de Vilmorin. In 1957, Malraux published the first volume of his trilogy on art entitled The Metamorphosis of the Gods . The second two volumes (not yet translated into English) were published shortly before he died in 1976. They are entitled L'Irréel and L'Intemporel and discuss artistic developments from

5415-399: The death of the artist. The American literary critic Jean-Pierre Hérubel wrote that Malraux never entirely worked out a coherent philosophy as his mystical Weltanschauung (world view) was based more upon emotion than logic. In Malraux's viewpoint, of all the professions, the artist was the most important as artists were the explorers and voyagers of the human spirit, as artistic creation was

5510-409: The end of 1936 on both sides. The Republic circulated photos of Malraux standing next to some Potez 540 bombers suggesting that France was on their side, at a time when France and the United Kingdom had officially declared neutrality. But Malraux's commitment to the Republicans was personal, like that of many other foreign volunteers, and there was never any suggestion that he was there at the behest of

5605-402: The environment and men through the force of his will, a persona that Malraux consciously imitated. Malraux often wrote about Lawrence, whom he described admiringly as a man with a need for "the absolute", for whom no compromises were possible and for whom going all the way was the only way. Along the same lines, Malraux argued that Lawrence should not be remembered mainly as a guerrilla leader in

5700-406: The fighters proved to be airworthy, and they were delivered intentionally without guns or gunsights . The Ministry of Defense of France had feared that modern types of planes would easily be captured by the German Condor Legion fighting with General Francisco Franco , and the lesser models were a way of maintaining official "neutrality". The planes were surpassed by more modern types introduced by

5795-408: The film, One Day in 2011. The company also creates story content for media including video games, social networks on the web, and mobile platforms. Random House is one of the largest English language publishers, and part of a group of publishers once known as the "Big 6" and now known as the "Big Five". In October 2012, Bertelsmann entered into talks with rival conglomerate Pearson plc , over

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5890-480: The filmmaker Alain Resnais . By the age of twenty, Malraux was reading the work of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who was to remain a major influence on him for the rest of his life. Malraux was especially impressed with Nietzsche's theory of a world in continuous turmoil and his statement "that the individual himself is still the most recent creation" who was completely responsible for all of his actions. Most of all, Malraux embraced Nietzsche's theory of

5985-456: The great political causes of the day, that the only truly great causes were the ones that one was willing to die for. In 1933 Malraux published Man's Fate ( La Condition Humaine ), a novel about the 1927 failed Communist rebellion in Shanghai . Despite Malraux's attempts to present his Chinese characters as more three dimensional and developed than he did in Les Conquérants , his biographer Oliver Todd wrote he could not "quite break clear of

6080-419: The heart than to the brain. Malraux was a proud Frenchman, but he also saw himself as a citizen of the world, a man who loved the cultural achievements of all of the civilizations across the globe. At the same time, Malraux criticized those intellectuals who wanted to retreat into the ivory tower, instead arguing that it was the duty of intellectuals to participate and fight (both metaphorically and literally) in

6175-405: The high culture of all the nations of the world, Malraux was especially interested in art history and archaeology, and saw his duty as a writer to share what he knew with ordinary people. An aesthete, Malraux believed that art was spiritually enriching and necessary for humanity. Malraux was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 32 occasions. He was an annual contender for the prize in

6270-416: The highest form of human achievement for only art could illustrate humanity's relationship with the universe. As Malraux wrote, "there is something far greater than history and it is the persistence of genius". Hérubel argued that it is fruitless to attempt to criticize Malraux for his lack of methodological consistency as Malraux cultivated a poetical sensibility, a certain lyrical style, that appealed more to

6365-416: The last two volumes of The Metamorphosis of the Gods ( L'Irréel and L'Intemporel ), are not yet available in English translation. Malraux's works on the theory of art contain a revolutionary approach to art that challenges the Enlightenment tradition that treats art simply as a source of "aesthetic pleasure". However, as French writer André Brincourt has commented, Malraux's books on art have been "skimmed

6460-531: The original 1985–1987 animated television series (1989–2005, 2008–2009), and Golden Books (2001–2005). In 1994, they began distributing through Sony Wonder . Random House Home Video became dormant around 2005, but Sony Wonder still continued to use Random House Home Video's logo on Arthur VHS tapes and DVDs until 2006. Andr%C3%A9 Malraux Defunct Defunct Georges André Malraux ( / m æ l ˈ r oʊ / mal- ROH ; French: [ʒɔʁʒ ɑ̃dʁe malʁo] ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976)

6555-434: The parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House , which is owned by the Germany -based media conglomerate Bertelsmann . Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints. Random House

6650-464: The past, and the very act of appreciating art was itself an act of art as the love of art was part of a continuation of endless artistic metamorphosis that constantly created something new. Malraux argued that as different types of art went in and out of style, the revival of a style was a metamorphosis as art could never be appreciated in exactly the same way as it was in the past. As art was timeless, it conquered time and death as artworks lived on after

6745-490: The possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group . On July 1, 2013, the merger was completed, and the new company emerged as Penguin Random House . When founded, Bertelsmann owned 53% of the joint venture while Pearson owned 47%. Pearson sold 22% of its shares to Bertelsmann in July 2017, and since April 2020, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann, making Random House division again wholly owned by German parent. At

6840-544: The present tense "...with its staccato snatches of dialogue and the images of sound and sight, light and darkness, which create a compellingly haunting atmosphere." The Conquerors was set in the summer of 1925 against the backdrop of the general strike called by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Kuomintang in Hong Kong and Canton, the novel concerns political intrigue amongst the "anti-imperialist" camp. The novel

6935-517: The romantic, enigmatic hero. Malraux often admitted to having a "certain fascination" with Lawrence, and it has been suggested that Malraux's sudden decision to abandon the Surrealist literary scene in Paris for adventure in the Far East was prompted by a desire to emulate Lawrence who began his career as an archaeologist in the Ottoman Empire excavating the ruins of the ancient city of Carchemish in

7030-623: The ruins he found up in the mountains of Yemen were the capital of the Queen of Sheba. Though Malraux's claim is not generally accepted by archeologists, the expedition bolstered Malraux's fame and provided the material for several of his later essays. During the 1930s, Malraux was active in the anti-fascist Popular Front in France. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in and helping to organize

7125-478: The same time archaeologists, with the approval of the French government, were removing large numbers of items from Angkor - many of which are now housed in the Guimet Museum in Paris. On his return, Malraux was arrested and charged by French colonial authorities for removing a bas-relief from the exquisite Banteay Srei temple. Although he was guilty, his arrest and imprisonment were deemed inappropriate – for

7220-727: The small Spanish Republican Air Force. Curtis Cate, one of his biographers, writes that Malraux was slightly wounded twice during efforts to stop the Battle of Madrid in 1936 as the Spanish Nationalists attempted to take Madrid, but the historian Hugh Thomas argues otherwise. The French government sent aircraft to Republican forces in Spain, but they were obsolete by the standards of 1936. They were mainly Potez 540 bombers and Dewoitine D.372 fighters. The slow Potez 540 rarely survived three months of air missions, flying at 160 knots against enemy fighters flying at more than 250 knots. Few of

7315-515: The temples of Angkor) in the jungle by the French explorer Henri Mouhot in 1861 had given Cambodia a romantic reputation in France, as the home of the vast, mysterious ruins of the Khmer empire. Upon reaching Cambodia, Malraux, Clara and friend Louis Chevasson undertook an expedition into unexplored areas of the former imperial settlements in search of hidden temples, hoping to find artifacts and items that could be sold to art collectors and museums. At about

7410-551: The theory of art were to follow. These included the three-volume Metamorphosis of the Gods and Precarious Man and Literature , the latter published posthumously in 1977. In 1948, Malraux married a second time, to Marie-Madeleine Lioux , a concert pianist and the widow of his half-brother, Roland Malraux. They separated in 1966. Subsequently, Malraux lived with Louise de Vilmorin in the Vilmorin family château at Verrières-le-Buisson, Essonne,

7505-755: The theory of art, have received less attention than one might expect, especially in Anglophone countries. At the beginning of the Second World War , Malraux joined the French Army . He was captured in 1940 during the Battle of France but escaped and later joined the French Resistance . In 1944, he was captured by the Gestapo . He later commanded the Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in

7600-453: The theory that there was a bibliothèque imaginaire where writers created works that influenced subsequent writers much as painters learned their craft by studying the old masters; once they have understood the work of the old masters, writers would sally forth with the knowledge gained to create new works that added to the growing and never-ending bibliothèque imaginaire . (See also musée imaginaire ). An elitist who appreciated what he saw as

7695-435: The time of the acquisition the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business with more than 10,000 employees and 250 independent publishing imprints and with about $ 3.9 billion in annual revenues. The move to consolidate was to provide leverage against Amazon.com and battle the shrinking state of bookstores . In October 2018, Penguin Random House merged two of its most known publishing lines, Random House and

7790-562: The traditional idea used by other classics publishers such as Penguin or Oxford University Press of jacketing classics with art from the period in which they were written. Instead, Vintage uses contemporary covers to broaden the book's appeal and to give the entire Vintage catalog a single stylistic signature. Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House . Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library , it quickly overtook Modern Library as

7885-463: The war. Shortly after the war, General Charles de Gaulle appointed Malraux as his Minister for Information (1945–1946). Soon after, he completed his first book on art, The Psychology of Art , published in three volumes (1947–1949). The work was subsequently revised and republished in one volume as The Voices of Silence ( Les Voix du Silence ), the first part of which has been published separately as The Museum without Walls . Other important works on

7980-730: Was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs . Malraux's novel La Condition Humaine ( Man's Fate ) (1933) won the Prix Goncourt . He was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as information minister (1945–46) and subsequently as France's first cultural affairs minister during de Gaulle's presidency (1959–1969). Malraux was born in Paris in 1901, the son of Fernand-Georges Malraux (1875–1930) and Berthe Félicie Lamy (1877–1932). His parents separated in 1905 and eventually divorced. There are suggestions that Malraux's paternal grandfather committed suicide in 1909. Malraux

8075-422: Was a failure at the time as the publishers marketed it as a stirring adventure story set in far-off, exotic, Cambodia which confused many readers who, instead, found a novel pondering deep philosophical questions. In his Asian novels Malraux used Asia as a stick to beat Europe with as he argued that after World War I the ideal of progress of a Europe getting better and better for the general advancement of humanity

8170-458: Was a joint venture with Italian publisher Mondadori (Random House Mondadori). Upon Bertelsmann's acquisition of Mondadori's stake in the JV, the name was kept temporarily four months. Some Spanish-language authors published by Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial include Roberto Bolaño , Javier Marías , Mario Vargas Llosa and Guillermo Arriaga . Random House of Canada was established in 1944 as

8265-614: Was anti-Germanic or anti-fascist. Louis Aragon and André Malraux were both on these "Otto Lists" of forbidden authors. After the war, Malraux was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance and the Croix de Guerre . The British awarded him the Distinguished Service Order , for his work with British liaison officers in Corrèze , Dordogne and Lot . After Dordogne was liberated, Malraux led

8360-460: Was dead. As such, Malraux now argued that European civilization was faced with a Nietzschean void, a twilight world, without God or progress, in which the old values had proven worthless and a sense of spirituality that had once existed was gone. An agnostic, but an intensely spiritual man, Malraux maintained that what was needed was an "aesthetic spirituality" in which love of 'Art' and 'Civilization' would allow one to appreciate le sacré in life,

8455-521: Was fighting in Alsace , Josette died, aged 34, when she slipped while boarding a train. His two sons died together in 1961 in an automobile accident. The car they were driving had been given them by Vincent's girlfriend, the wealthy Clara Saint. On 22 February 1934, Malraux together with Édouard Corniglion-Molinier embarked on a much publicized expedition to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba mentioned in

8550-673: Was followed in 1921 by three semi-surrealist tales, one of which, "Paper Moons", was illustrated by Fernand Léger . Malraux also frequented the Parisian artistic and literary milieux of the period, meeting figures such as Demetrios Galanis , Max Jacob , François Mauriac , Guy de Pourtalès , André Salmon , Jean Cocteau , Raymond Radiguet , Florent Fels , Pascal Pia , Marcel Arland , Edmond Jaloux , and Pierre Mac Orlan . In 1922, Malraux married Clara Goldschmidt . Malraux and his first wife separated in 1938 but did not divorce until 1947. His daughter from this marriage, Florence (b. 1933), married

8645-490: Was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer , two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random", which suggested the name Random House. In 1934, they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce 's novel Ulysses in

8740-590: Was founded in May 2003 as a joint venture between Kodansha and Random House. In 2009, Random House discontinued the joint venture. Takeda Random House Japan filed for bankruptcy on December 14, 2012. In 2006, Random House invested in Random House Korea . In 2010, Random House divested their ownership. In April 2010, Random House Australia managing director, Margie Seale, was assigned the responsibilities of exploring and evaluating potential business opportunities for

8835-403: Was in the form of an exchange of letters between a Westerner and an Asian, comparing aspects of the two cultures. This was followed by his first novel The Conquerors (1928), and then by The Royal Way (1930) which reflected some of his Cambodian experiences. The American literary critic Dennis Roak described Les Conquérants as influenced by The Seven Pillars of Wisdom as it was narrated in

8930-545: Was named editorial director for Dial Press and editor-in-chief of Random House imprints reporting to Gina Centrello, the president and publisher of the Random House Publishing Group. There were layoffs at Doubleday , now part of Knopf Publishing Group , and Dial Press , Bantam Dell . Spiegel & Grau was moved from Doubleday over to Random House. Random House also has an entertainment production arm for film and television, Random House Studio; which released

9025-541: Was raised by his mother, his maternal aunt Marie Lamy and his maternal grandmother, Adrienne Lamy (née Romagna), who had a grocery store in the small town of Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis). His father, a stockbroker, died by suicide in 1930 after the international crash of the stock market and onset of the Great Depression . From his childhood, associates noticed that André had marked nervousness and motor and vocal tics. The recent biographer Olivier Todd, who published

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