Armand Lunel

Origins and early life

Armand Lunel was born at Aix-en-Provence on 9 June 1892 into a Jewish family of the Comtat Venaissin settled in Provence for generations, descended from the communities of the papal states, the oldest continuous Jewish presence in France.

Work and career

He took the agrégation in philosophy, taught for forty years in Monaco, and wrote in the intervals. In 1926 he received the very first Prix Renaudot for Nicolo-Peccavi ou l'Affaire Dreyfus à Carpentras, a novel in which the Affair is replayed in miniature among the Jews and Catholics of a small Provençal town. A schoolfriend of Darius Milhaud, he wrote the librettos for several of the composer's works, among them Les Malheurs d'Orphée and Esther de Carpentras, both from those same years, and later David.

His last book, Juifs du Languedoc, de la Provence et des États français du Pape, published in 1975, is still a standard account of that world. He is often called the last speaker of Judeo-Provençal, the shuadit of the papal Jews; the claim should be handled with care, since he appears to have known only fragments heard from elderly relatives, which he wove into his books. He died at Monaco on 3 November 1977.