Eugène Guillevic


Eugène Guillevic was one of the better known French poets of the second half of the 20th century. Professionally, he went under just the single name "Guillevic".

Life

He was born in the rocky landscape and marine environment of Brittany. His father, a sailor, was a policeman and took him to Jeumont in 1909, Saint-Jean-Brévelay in 1912, and Ferrette in 1919.
After a BA in mathematics, he was placed by the exams of 1926, in the Administration of Registration. Appointed in 1935 to Paris as senior editor at the Directorate General at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, he was assigned in 1942 to control the economy. He was from 1945 to 1947 in the Cabinets of Ministers Francis Billoux and Charles Tillon. In 1947 after the ouster of Communist ministers, he returned to the Inspector General of Economics, where his work included studies of the economy and planning, until his retirement in 1967.
He was a pre-war friend of Jean Follain, who introduced him to the "Sagesse" group. Then he belonged to the "School of Rochefort".
He was a practicing Catholic for about thirty years. He became a communist sympathizer during the Spanish Civil War, and in 1942 joined the Communist Party when he joined with Paul Éluard, and participated in the publications of the underground press.
His poetry is concise, straightforward as rock, rough and generous, but still suggestive. His poetry is also characterized by its rejection of metaphors, in that he prefers comparisons which he considered less misleading.

Awards