Angers hosts an exhibition on Hervé Bazin : Underwood and understood

Credit : BU Angers

Angers talks again of Hervé Bazin for his hundredth birthday. An exhibition about this famous French writer will take place in the city on the weeks to come. One of the testimony of the lifetime of Bazin the inhabitants will see in one of the museum of the city (where Bazin is born and died) is his typewriter; the Underwood with which he wrote his books. The machine Bazin spent so much time which looks severe and cold. No fantasy wafts from that metallic device which nevertheless allowed Bazin to depict some of the most critical portrayals of French, and not especially Angers, bourgeoisie.

Credit picture Wikipedia

The Underwood Hervé Bazin was fond of remains one of the symbols of the world literature. Manufactured by an American company located in New York, the typewriter Bazin used is considered as the first widely successful modern typewriter. Many American authors like Scot Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac or William Faulkner worked with Underwood. The last wife of the author reached to save the machine of her late husband and is pictured with it in the daily Le Courrier de l'Ouest. 


This commemoration of Bazin birth could trigger a more important interest from the city to one of its most famous representatives. In fact, there is no way or public equipment in Angers using the name of Bazin. With help from Maine et Loire authorities, the university library of Angers preempted 22 manuscripts and about 9000 letters from Bazin in 2004.