Gracq first studied in Paris at the
Lycée Henri IV, where he earned his
baccalauréat. He then entered the
École Normale Supérieure in 1930, later studying at the
École libre des sciences politiques (Sciences Po.), both schools of the
University of Paris at the time. In 1932, he read
André Breton's
Nadja, which deeply influenced him. His first novel,
The Castle of Argol, is dedicated to that surrealist writer, to whom he devoted a whole book in 1948. In 1936, he joined the
French Communist Party but quit the party in 1939 after the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed. During the Second World War, he was a prisoner of war in Silesia with other officers of the French Army. One of the friendships he formed there was with author and literary critic Armand Hoog, who later described Gracq as a passionate individualist and ferociously anti-
Vichy. In 1950, he published a fierce attack on contemporary literary culture and literary prizes in the review
Empédocle titled ''
La Littérature à l'estomac. When he won the Prix Goncourt for The Opposing Shore (Le Rivage des Syrtes
) the following year, he remained consistent with his criticism and refused the prize. His novel The Sunset Lands'', which he worked on from 1953 to 1956 but abandoned, was published in 2014. ==
The Opposing Shore==