What whispers does Rue Henri Pourrat carry from the past? Henri Pourrat was a French writer. He was a folklore collector born in 1887. Ambert is a town in the mountainous Auvergne region of central France. He died near Ambert in 1959.
Rue Henri Pourrat could tell tales of Pourrat’s early life. Born to a shop owner in Ambert he finished secondary school in 1904. The following year, he went to Paris. He prepared for a career in agronomy at the national School of Forestry in Nancy.
Imagine Henri Pourrat walking these streets. He contracted tuberculosis almost immediately. He had to return home. He was confined to bed in stillness and silence. When sufficiently recovered he began walking daily. He explored the hills and villages around Ambert in every weather.
Rue Henri Pourrat might recall Pourrat’s early publications. From 1906 to 1909, Pourrat published extravagant stories locally. He used various pseudonyms and collaborated with his close friend Jean Angeli. He also wrote poetry and articles on the local dialect. He wrote about notable figures of the region.
In 1911, Pourrat began collecting and publishing folktales and songs. He worked partly under the guidance of the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep. The two differed in their approach. Pourrat could not bear to publish tales precisely as received. He couldn’t publish them flaws and all.
Think of Rue Henri Pourrat during World War I. War broke out in July 1914. The young men of the region were soon gone. Unable to join them, Pourrat felt rejected. Angeli’s death in action plunged him into black anguish. He could only write articles and songs in support of the soldiers from Auvergne.
Rue Henri Pourrat might echo with the losses of the Ambert region. The region lost 2500 men. Pourrat almost alone survived among his age group. He also survived the Spanish flu. An accident killed one younger brother three months earlier. The other died in 1923 of injuries suffered as a prisoner of war.
In 1926 Pourrat was declared fully healed at last. He was an ardent Catholic devoted to the peasantry of his region. He became a vocal champion of the land. World War I accelerated the decline of the countryside. Pourrat urged a return to the soil.
After the French defeat in 1940, the government of Vichy France adopted this stance. Pourrat’s support of it caused him trouble later. Association with Vichy endangered many. However the difficulty passed.
Thereafter, Pourrat turned to his life work. It was Le Trésor des Contes. This was a collection of over 1000 folktales. He gathered them over the decades from the region around Ambert. He meant it as a compendium of the Auvergne peasant memory.
Rue Henri Pourrat stands as a reminder of a prolific literary career. Pourrat published about 100 works. These ranged from Sur la colline ronde to Histoire des gens dans les montagnes du Centre. Novels essays historical studies and folktales flowed from his pen. In 1928, he received the Legion of Honor. He received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin.
Pourrat achieved national literary prominence with Les vaillances farces et aventures de Gaspard des montagnes. In 1921 the first volume won a literary prize. In 1931 the Académie Française awarded the complete work its Grand Prix du Roman. In 1941 another major prize honored Vent de mars a volume of essays.
Consider Rue Henri Pourrat a pathway. It leads us to understand Henri Pourrat. He befriended many distinguished literary figures. These included Francis Jammes Alexandre Vialatte and Jean Paulhan.
Here on Rue Henri Pourrat we remember a life dedicated to preserving the stories of a region. We honor a writer who found the universal in the local. He reminds us that every street has a story to tell.