Poet and member of the French Resistance, René Char was born in June, 1907 in l’Isle-sur-Sorgue.

                                                 
                                                     René Char
                                               Copyright Muriel Catala


 He was a native son of Provence. His grandfather was born in Avignon, and his father was an entrepreneur of the Plasterers of Vaucluse who became Mayor of l’Isle-sur-Sorgue.He spoke with a southern French accent so thick you could cut it with a knife.
 
From 1907 to 1929, he spent his childhood in “The Névons” a spacious family estate, situated along the Sorgues, not far from the highlands of Provence, from Mount Ventoux or from the ruins of Les Baux. He completed his studies in Marseille and his military service in Nîmes. 

In 1928, he published the collection Bells on the Heart, adolescent poetry full of references to the death of his father who had passed away ten years before. In 1929, Eluard went to see Char in l’Isle-sur-Sorgue. Then he left for Paris and briefly joined the Surrealist movement.

René Char was a force of nature. He had a fiery temper, he was a lover of women and he was seldom inclined to compromise. While scuffling with a group of surrealists in a bar, he was even stabbed.
 
In 1930, he published Tomb of Secrets in Nîmes, concluding his reflections on the past. Breton, Eluard and Aragon all met him in Avignon. In 1932, he married Georgette Goldstein.
 
In 1934, he published The Hammer without a Master.  Stricken with a serious case of blood-poisoning, René Char went back to l’Isle. 

          
                                              Campredon-Maison René Char
                                                   Copyright Muriel Catala


He distanced himself from the surrealist movement which was becoming a cultural phenomenon and losing some of its destabilizing force. 

In 1937, he wrote poetry collections that demonstrated his anguish at the rise of Nazism, the massacre of Spanish children and the alienation of workers despite the arrival of the Popular Front. 

In 1939, he was deployed to the front lines in Alsace. Under the Occupation, he joined the Resistance. His life as a partisan was recorded in Leaves of Hypnos (1946). In an existence characterized by mortal peril and life with few pleasures, he distinguished himself by demonstrating great courage. In 1943, he entered the Fighting French Forces (Forces Françaises Combattantes).

 When France was finally liberated, he returned frequently to Provence. Char made several important contacts in the 1950s with Braque, Staël, Joan Miro, Bataille. He also met Camus, with whom he maintained an almost fraternal relationship. He divorced Georgette in 1949.