Well-known personalities from Saint-Rémy - Tourist Office of Saint-Remy de Provence

JOSEPH ROUMANILLE (1830-1914)

Joseph Roumanille was born in Saint-Rémy and grew up in the Quartier des Jardins area. He was a poet and journalist, and together with Frédéric Mistral, was one of seven young men who on 21 May 1854 set up an association called Félibrige (from the word felibre: a writer or wise person), with the aim of saving the Provencal language. They envisaged creating a great Provencal-French dictionary, and published the review L’Armana Provençau.

A bookseller and publisher, Roumanille was a key figure in the development of Provencal culture. He published an anthology of works by a range of Provencal authors under the title Li Prouvençalo (Provencal poems by Provencal writers). His statue was erected in the Place J. Roumanille at Saint-Rémy in 1954 to celebrate the centenary of Félibrige.

MARIE MAURON (1896-1986)
Born in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where she lived all her life, Marie Mauron, née Marie-Antoinette Roumanille, left behind a body of work of great poetic sensitivity. She tells the life stories of Provencal country people with great affection. Artists visiting the area, such as Aragon, E. Charles-Roux, André Chamson, Gérard Philipe, Jean Cocteau, the musician Pablo Casals, the engraver Louis Jou, and the painters Seyssaud, Chabaud, Serra, and Baltus, liked to meet around her table at the Mas d’Angirany. Known as the Provencal Colette, this prolific writer produced more than 100 works and was awarded many prizes: the Prix de l’Académie Française for Mes Grandes Heures de Provence, the Prix Frédéric Mistral for Charloun Rieu, and the Prix Sully-Olivier de Serres for La Transhumance.

CHARLES MAURON (1899-1966)
Born in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Charles Mauron, who invented the use of psychological criticism as a tool of literary analysis, was by turn a scientist and a literary figure, a writer and a critic, a poet and philosopher, who wrote in English as well as in French and Provencal. His excellent knowledge of English enabled him to translate many works: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E Lawrence, Orlando by Virginia Wolf, and other texts by Forster and Fry. Heir to a long republican tradition, he was Mayor of Saint-Rémy from 1945 to 1959 and a departmental councillor from