Hervé Bazin is best known as the author of Vipère au poing (1948; translated as Grasping the Viper, 1950), a devastating account of the hatred between a boy and his mother. He has written twelve other novels, the most successful of which are about the difficulties characteristic of family life. He has also published three collections of poems, short stories, and several works of nonfiction. In a poll conducted in 1956 by Nouvelles Littéraires, he was voted the best novelist of the previous decade. The following year he was awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature de Monaco and, in 1958, he was elected to the Académie Goncourt, of which he became president in 1973. Since 1960 he has been president of the Association des Ecrivains de l'Ouest. In 1967 he won the Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir and in October 1974 the Grand Prix International de Po...