Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
Speaker 1: I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading
Speaker 1: service intended for people who are blind or have other
Speaker 1: disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please
Speaker 1: join me now for the first part of the article
Speaker 1: titled to Finance their Lifestyle. A young French couple went
Speaker 1: to Cambodia to steal antiquities. They did almost everything wrong.
Speaker 1: Clara and Andre Malrou conspired to loot the pink Temple
Speaker 1: of Bante Sree, but their failure started a battle of
Speaker 1: reclamation by Joshua Hammer. One morning in November nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: a young French couple stopped by the headquarters of the
Speaker 1: Eco Francaise dextrem orient E FEO, the French School for
Speaker 1: the Far East, a stuccoed ochre painted villa shaded by
Speaker 1: phrongipani and banyan trees in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.
Speaker 1: The pair had just arrived by boat and were soaking
Speaker 1: up the atmosphere of Southeast Asia. The soup cellar at
Speaker 1: the corner of the street. Squatting beside his little bamboo stove,
Speaker 1: bussing over the embers on which the fish soup will simmer.
Speaker 1: Clara Mairou, the wife, would write later recalling the sights
Speaker 1: of the city, the rickshaw driver running barefoot, panting between
Speaker 1: the wooden shafts of his car. Passing through a stately portico,
Speaker 1: the couple entered a reception room where they introduced themselves
Speaker 1: to the school's acting director, Leonard Russo. They had come
Speaker 1: to Indochina, they explained, on a research trip. They planned
Speaker 1: to trek into the Cambodian jungle to explore remnants of
Speaker 1: the Royal Road, the main highway of the Khmer Empire,
Speaker 1: which had ruled much of the Southeast Asia for six
Speaker 1: hundred years until its collapse in the fifteenth century. Further,
Speaker 1: they had already obtained the endorsement of the Colonial Office
Speaker 1: in Paris for their research, which would include making drawings
Speaker 1: of Khmer antiquities, but before venturing into the wilderness, they
Speaker 1: needed to have their lass passe validated by the e FEO.
Speaker 1: Examining their credentials, Oroso warned them that the region where
Speaker 1: they were heading was dangerous. Two e f EO scholars
Speaker 1: had recently been killed there by local armed groups they
Speaker 1: brushed off the admonition. He also told them that any
Speaker 1: objects they found must be left in situ or excavated
Speaker 1: solely on behalf of the school. Too many had been
Speaker 1: appropriated by archaeologists and others who had flocked to Cambodia
Speaker 1: in recent decades since the French naturalist Henri Muho brought
Speaker 1: the ruins of Ancor, the ancient Khmer capital, to the
Speaker 1: attention of Europeans in eighteen sixty. Having received their passes,
Speaker 1: they met Henri Parmentier, the e f EO's Paris born
Speaker 1: head of archaeology, who was tasked with documenting, safeguarding, and
Speaker 1: restoring the monuments of Cambodia and southern Vietnam. Parmentier, whom
Speaker 1: the frenchwoman later described as a somewhat stramping old Bohemian,
Speaker 1: was charmed by the couple's evident interest in Khmer art
Speaker 1: and culture, and he offered to meet them in Pennan
Speaker 1: Penn and escort them upriver to Siam rep the gateway
Speaker 1: to Ancor. But the couple were not researchers and the
Speaker 1: field work they described was a ruse. The Frenchman Andre
Speaker 1: Malrou would become one of the twentieth century's cultural giants.
Speaker 1: He later fought with the Republican Army in the Spanish
Speaker 1: Civil War, joined the French Resistance during World War War II.
Speaker 1: Wrote such celebrated novels as Man's Fate, a sweeping tale
Speaker 1: of self sacrifice and betrayal set during the Chinese Revolution.
Speaker 1: Received close to one hundred nominations for the Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: for Literature, became a confidant of John and Jacqueline Kennedy,
Speaker 1: Joan Lai, and Richard Nixon, and served as France's influential
Speaker 1: Minister of Cultural Affairs under President Charles de gaul. But
Speaker 1: even today, Moulreux remains an ambiguous figure, heroic, an duplicitus,
Speaker 1: a genius and a rogue, and a foe of colonialism,
Speaker 1: whose legacy remains tarnished by one impetuous act deep in
Speaker 1: the Cambodian jungle. That episode not only altered his life
Speaker 1: and that of his wife, it was an early flashpoint
Speaker 1: in coming disputes over Asia's ownership of its cultural heritage
Speaker 1: and the legitimacy of colonial authority. The French had dreamed
Speaker 1: of carving a colonial empire out of Indochina for generations.
Speaker 1: French missionaries arrived in Vietnam in the seventeenth century and
Speaker 1: began converting much of the population to Catholicism. In eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, the French government, joined by its Spanish allies,
Speaker 1: used the pretexts of protecting Catholics to dispatch warships and
Speaker 1: three thousand troops to Southeast Asia, and within months they
Speaker 1: had captured Saigon. The French were also eyeing Cambodia. Muho,
Speaker 1: with the backing of Great Britain's Royal Geographic Society and
Speaker 1: the Zoological Society of London, sailed for Indochina in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight on an expedition to collect flora and fauna.
Speaker 1: Two years later, he followed the tributaries of the Meikang,
Speaker 1: and deep in the jungle came upon Encor. Other westerners
Speaker 1: had seen the ancient capital, but none had described or
Speaker 1: drawn it as vividly as Muho. There are ruins of
Speaker 1: such grandeur. He wrote that at the first view, one
Speaker 1: is filled with profounded admiration, and cannot but ask what
Speaker 1: has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened.
Speaker 1: The authors of these gigantic works He rhapsodized about the
Speaker 1: largest temple, angkar Watt, a rival to that of Solomon
Speaker 1: and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, and the Bayone, a
Speaker 1: Buddhist temple with stone towers adorned with two hundred enigmatically
Speaker 1: smiling faces. In eighteen sixty three, the French, citing threats
Speaker 1: from the king of neighboring Siam, pressured the Cambodian ruler,
Speaker 1: King Norodome into a treaty of protection, which allowed troops
Speaker 1: to enter the country. Ten years after that, the French
Speaker 1: governor General marched into the royal palace and forced Norodome
Speaker 1: to seede control of his country. French administrators quickly set
Speaker 1: up sugar plantations and put the peasantry to work at
Speaker 1: low pay under harsh conditions. Soldiers and government officials grabbed
Speaker 1: whatever chimer antiquities they could. One naval officer, Louis Delaport,
Speaker 1: removed seventy sculptures, lentils, and bas reliefs from Angcor and
Speaker 1: other sites and shipped them to the Guimeis Museum in Paris.
Speaker 1: He argued that he was saving them from destruction. Khmer Art,
Speaker 1: Delaport wrote, has remained the most beautiful expression of human
Speaker 1: genius in this vast part of Asia. In the wake
Speaker 1: of Delaporte's looting spree, colonial authorities declared all relics state
Speaker 1: property and forbade their export, but many temples remained unguarded. Malroe,
Speaker 1: born in nineteen o one in Paris, fell under the
Speaker 1: spell of Indochina as a young man, the son of
Speaker 1: a swaggering but failing stockbroker who would die by suicide
Speaker 1: in nineteen He grew up after his parents divorce, with
Speaker 1: his mother aunt and Italian grandmother, a small time grocer
Speaker 1: and a Paris excerb dropping out of school at seventeen,
Speaker 1: he dreamed of literary fame. Malroux liked to think of
Speaker 1: himself as an accursed poet of genius, wrote his biographer
Speaker 1: Olive Todd in two thousand two. He could see himself
Speaker 1: not only in Hugo, but in Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud.
Speaker 1: For a while, malrou scratched out a living buying and
Speaker 1: selling antiquarian books, including pornography, while writing essays on Cubist
Speaker 1: and Dadaist art for avant garde magazines. In the evenings,
Speaker 1: he frequented the bohemian cafes of montmart sporting a fedora,
Speaker 1: a cane, a silk poplin's shirt and a fake pearl pin,
Speaker 1: a cigarette cocked between his lips. He had a dark
Speaker 1: beauty and a magnetism. Todd, who met him in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, wrote about the young dandy. Malroe's friend, the
Speaker 1: writer Pascalpia, observed that a love of art and a
Speaker 1: taste for travel tormented him from his youth. In nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one, another friend introduced Malroe to Clara Goldschmidt, a
Speaker 1: writer editor for the influential modernist Paris magazine Action and
Speaker 1: the daughter of prosperous German Jews. Four years older than Malrou,
Speaker 1: Goldschmidt wrote Todd was effervescent and cosmopolitan, five foot nothing,
Speaker 1: gray eyes, dark brown hair, a rather long nose, and
Speaker 1: a determined chin. After a whirlwind courtship of tango dancing
Speaker 1: and gabaret go going, they married that October. Shortly afterward,
Speaker 1: the couple hatched a plot modest collectors of Asian art.
Speaker 1: They had visited Parisian auction houses and become aware of
Speaker 1: the soaring prices being paid for Cambodian's statuary. Nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: after reversals in the Paris stock Exchange wiped out much
Speaker 1: of their savings, Malro proposed that they had for Indo China,
Speaker 1: from Siam to Cambodia along the Royal Route. There are
Speaker 1: large temples, those that were identified and described in the
Speaker 1: government inventory, but there are certainly others, smaller ones still
Speaker 1: unknown today. Malro told his wife, according to her memoir
Speaker 1: Our twenty years, he said that they should go to
Speaker 1: some small temple, take a few statues, sell them in America,
Speaker 1: and live comfortably for two or three years. To prepare
Speaker 1: for the journey, the couple spent hours in the National
Speaker 1: Library and at the Guimei Museum studying Parmentier's surveys. According
Speaker 1: to Walter Langlois, who wrote a nineteen sixty six study
Speaker 1: of the couple's time in Indochina, they were also careful
Speaker 1: to read up on the laws of Cambodian archaeological sites,
Speaker 1: and they believed that they had discovered a loop. Some
Speaker 1: newfound temples might not yet have fallen under government protection.
Speaker 1: The most prominent was a Hindu temple complex in the
Speaker 1: Greater Ankar region called Bante Sri, built in a d
Speaker 1: nine sixty seven by a reverend guru to two Khaimer kings.
Speaker 1: It was adorned with friezes depicting scenes from the Ramayana
Speaker 1: and the Mahabrata, the sacred texts of Hinduism. The site
Speaker 1: fell into disuse in the twelfth century after Jayavarman the
Speaker 1: seventh declared Buddhism the state religion. Gradually consumed by jungle,
Speaker 1: It was uncovered again only in nineteen fourteen. Surveying it
Speaker 1: two years later, Parmentier wrote that it was a marvel
Speaker 1: without equal in Cambodia. The high quality pink sandstone quarried
Speaker 1: a few miles from the site made its friezes almost
Speaker 1: impervious to decay, preserving the artworks in remarkable condition, its
Speaker 1: decoration and its refinement. Parmentier went on give it incomparable beauty.
Speaker 1: In her memoir, Clara Malrou described the plan we decided
Speaker 1: to head toward Bante Sri, then lost in the bush.
Speaker 1: Since Parmentier's visit, she wrote, no one had gone there
Speaker 1: to see what had happened to it. Perhaps it had
Speaker 1: collapsed under the vines. Perhaps it had transformed into heartstones,
Speaker 1: because stone is rare in this region. Lea Genoviz an
Speaker 1: expert in French Indochina and a biographer of the Malrose,
Speaker 1: believes that Clara may have been the real instigator of
Speaker 1: the scheme. In her view, the couple was driven by
Speaker 1: both a thirst for adventure and a smug sense of superiority.
Speaker 1: This was an escapade done almost on a dare, and
Speaker 1: they never thought they would get caught. Geneviz told me.
Speaker 1: Their attitude was, people are so dim witted, we'll get
Speaker 1: away with it. In November nineteen twenty three, Andre and
Speaker 1: Clara malrou rendezvous and Saigon with Louis Chevesson, an amiable
Speaker 1: bookseller whom Malroux had known since grammar school. Malroux needed
Speaker 1: Chevesson to do the dirty work, Genevese says, including cutting
Speaker 1: stones and hauling crates. Then they traveled by boat up
Speaker 1: the Mekong River to Pinon Penn, the pearl of the Orient,
Speaker 1: dominated by the pagodas and spires of the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: royal Palace. One of their first encounters in the capital
Speaker 1: was fateful at the Albert serrou Museum, to day the
Speaker 1: National Museum of Cambodia, a stylized Khmer temple with serpent
Speaker 1: like ruthinials they met the institutions founding director and principal architect,
Speaker 1: Georges Groliers, The son of colonial civil servants. Groliers had
Speaker 1: been conceived, born and nurtured in Cambodia, and its essence
Speaker 1: infused his soul, his biographer Kent Davis told me recently.
Speaker 1: Grolier was a painter, the founder of a local art school,
Speaker 1: an expert in Cambodian dance, and a conservator. He believed
Speaker 1: in restoring Khmier art to the Khmer people. He saw
Speaker 1: their artistic past, their greatness, and thought it belonged to Cambodia. Malroe,
Speaker 1: hoping to line up additional support for the Royal Road project,
Speaker 1: tried to charm him. Malroux was a young kid, smart
Speaker 1: and reckless, who used the people he needed, Davis says.
Speaker 1: But as Grolier led the couple through the exhibit halls,
Speaker 1: Malroux kept asking him what certain artworks might fetch in
Speaker 1: Paris galleries, and Grolier sensed that he was up to something.
Speaker 1: The impression that mister Malroux had left on me, Grolier
Speaker 1: would recall bluntly, was unfavorable. On December seventh, Malroux, Clara
Speaker 1: and Chevasson with Parmentier. As their escort arrived in seam
Speaker 1: Reap and checked into the town's sole tourist bungalow. Promentier
Speaker 1: went off to survey a local temple, leaving the trio unsupervised. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Francois Cremisie, a local French administrator, helps the group recruit
Speaker 1: a dozen guides and porters, along with six ox cart
Speaker 1: drivers and their two wheeled carts. They then set out
Speaker 1: down a muddy path, the local workers hacking the underbrush
Speaker 1: with knives and sweeping away stinging insects and venomous snakes.
Speaker 1: Something is rotting around us. There is no longer just
Speaker 1: the danger of the vines. There is that of this thick,
Speaker 1: reddish earth, which the horses have trouble getting rid of.
Speaker 1: Clara wrote, There are also the mosquitoes, a curtain of
Speaker 1: angry insects that accompanies us, that we cross, that reforms
Speaker 1: around us, in front of us, behind us. The jungle
Speaker 1: slog lasted two days, with an overnight stop at a
Speaker 1: crude traveler's hut. Meals consist of pork, bread and yams
Speaker 1: cooked inside a large earthen termite mound. Finally, they crossed
Speaker 1: the Siem reap river here a narrow stream, and arrived
Speaker 1: at an ancient paved promenade. The guides led them through
Speaker 1: a broken gate, then down a stone corridor choked with vegetation.
Speaker 1: In his nineteen thirty novel The Royal Way, about two
Speaker 1: French adventurers seeking treasures in Cambodia, Malroe presented a version
Speaker 1: of the scene. Before one character lay a chaos of
Speaker 1: fallen stones, some of them lying flat, but most of
Speaker 1: them upended. It looked like a mason's yard invaded by
Speaker 1: the jungle. The novel's larger story was fictional, but the
Speaker 1: description of the heist, according to Malroe's biographers and witnesses
Speaker 1: to the crime, was largely accurate. One of the fortune
Speaker 1: seekers straddled a stone block that had tumbled from a
Speaker 1: wall and began to cut away a bas relief. The
Speaker 1: tool bit into the sandstone with the shrill, rasping sound,
Speaker 1: Moulroe wrote, at his fifth stroke, it skidded. When he
Speaker 1: drew it from the fissure, he found that all its
Speaker 1: teeth were gone. Undeterred, the accomplices clambered over banyan tree
Speaker 1: roots and broken stones, and approached three miniature temples or
Speaker 1: pressat standing side by side. The upper parts had collapsed,
Speaker 1: but several perfectly preserved friezes of buxom scantily clad deities
Speaker 1: known as devatas, framed by geometric and floral patterns, covered
Speaker 1: the six foot high stumps. Surmising that the dancing girls
Speaker 1: might together fetch them five hundred thousand francs or more
Speaker 1: tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to day,
Speaker 1: the men attacked the stones with chisels and hammers. Suddenly
Speaker 1: the blows were sounding differently. Molroe wrote the stone had
Speaker 1: split sunlike sparkled on the break. The sculptured frontage had
Speaker 1: split off clean and was lying on the ground like
Speaker 1: a newly severed head. In real life, Malreux, Chevalsson and
Speaker 1: Clara placed their stolen prizes into seven grates marked chemical products,
Speaker 1: a bounty including five goddesses and two votive tablets featuring
Speaker 1: a male guardian and a bearded acetic, plus four friezes
Speaker 1: carved with elaborate head dresses. Then they turned around and
Speaker 1: plodded back through the jungle to avoid Siam reap. They
Speaker 1: carted the load toward the tonlay Sap Lake, sixteen miles
Speaker 1: south of the town, where they boarded a steamboat and
Speaker 1: stashed the crates in the hold. Malroux intended to transport
Speaker 1: the friezes across the lake to the tone Lay Sap River,
Speaker 1: a tributary of the Mekang, and then sailed down stream
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy miles to Saigon. There they would
Speaker 1: put the precious cargo on a ship to Europe. But
Speaker 1: things did not go according to plan. Kram Rasi, the
Speaker 1: French administrator, had been suspicious of malrou from the start,
Speaker 1: and he planted spies among the porterors and guides. Tipped off.
Speaker 1: He telegraphed Grolier, who his own suspicions confirmed, obtained a
Speaker 1: search warrant from the state prosecutor. Then Grolier raced up
Speaker 1: the road to the port of Campong Chenang, near where
Speaker 1: the lake meets the river, to stop the thieves before
Speaker 1: they could abscond to Saigon. Grolier arrived while the ship
Speaker 1: was still moored at the dock. The museum director boarded
Speaker 1: the vessel, opened the crates and directed the captain to
Speaker 1: keep Malroux and his accomplices on board. Then he telegraphed
Speaker 1: ahead to the police and Pennam Penn fifty five miles
Speaker 1: down river, through which the boat would pass on its
Speaker 1: way to Saigon. Late on Christmas Eve nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: as church bells tooled across penom Pen, the ship arrived
Speaker 1: at the port. Two inspectors from the Surati French law
Speaker 1: enforcement boarded the steamer. A local journalist reported and after
Speaker 1: indicating to two passengers Malroux and Chevasson, that they had
Speaker 1: been ordered to search their baggage, had the latter opened
Speaker 1: and found some pieces of statuary from the anchor ruins.
Speaker 1: Police detained the trio at the Grand Manolie, a comfortable
Speaker 1: hotel opposite the police headquarters. On January fifth, nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 1: Lecau du Comboge, the country's largest newspaper, reported that Malraux
Speaker 1: and his accomplices had been arrested for committing an act
Speaker 1: of pillage, which bespeaks an unbelievable audacity and special knowledge
Speaker 1: of the value of the sculptures that were stolen. In
Speaker 1: her memoir, Clara tried to minimize the crime. I was
Speaker 1: not going to be upset because they had found in
Speaker 1: our crates fragments of a nearly collapsed temple, she wrote,
Speaker 1: to which for years so little attention had been paid
Speaker 1: that it could have collapsed, torn apart by the roots
Speaker 1: of the Banyan trees, or demolished by a peasant's tools.
Speaker 1: Clara's illusions melted away three months later when the prosecutor
Speaker 1: handed down a felony indictment and set a trial date
Speaker 1: in July. Clara, still in custody at the Grand Man Ali,
Speaker 1: had a nervous breakdown That evening. Malroux wrote to the
Speaker 1: High Commissioner from the hotel, my wife poisoned herself with verinal,
Speaker 1: a barbituate used to treat insomnia. She recovered at a
Speaker 1: local hospital. Malroe, in a less than heroic fashion, persuaded
Speaker 1: Chavassan to take the rap, arguing that if Malreaux were acquitted,
Speaker 1: he could travel to France to file an appeal on
Speaker 1: his friend's behalf. He has admitted acting entirely alone. Malrou
Speaker 1: wrote in the same letter, while I await judgment with
Speaker 1: some impatience, I do so without any anxiety. Weeks later,
Speaker 1: deciding that she was too fragile to withstand a trial,
Speaker 1: authorities released Clara Melroe from custody and she returned to France.
Speaker 1: The proceedings against Andre Malroux and Chevasson opened on July
Speaker 1: sixteenth at the criminal court of Pennon, Penn, a neoclassical
Speaker 1: villa with the red tile roof across the road from
Speaker 1: the Royal Palace. For two days, the judge took testimony
Speaker 1: from Cremazie, the Cambodian guides and ox drivers, Malroux and Chevasson,
Speaker 1: and Parmentier in hot water with his E F E
Speaker 1: O bosses for failing to protect Bantier Sree. The French
Speaker 1: archaeologists downplayed the crime, even praising the care the thieves
Speaker 1: had taken with their chisels. The defense attorney argued that
Speaker 1: Bante Srix had not been under official protection and denounced
Speaker 1: what he called the state's desire to mercilessly punish two
Speaker 1: young people guilty of removing a few stones from a
Speaker 1: virtually abandoned monument. Malrou's strategy to blame Chevasson crumbled. The
Speaker 1: proceedings show that Chevalsson did not have the intelligence to
Speaker 1: engineer an elaborate plan genevise, the Malroux biographer told me
Speaker 1: on Monday, July twenty first, the judge found both men
Speaker 1: guilty of theft and sentenced them to among the harshest
Speaker 1: penalties allowed by BAW for Malroux three years in prison
Speaker 1: and a five year prohibition of residence Indochina for Chevasson
Speaker 1: eighteen months. Both petitioned for a hearing before the Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals in Saigon and were released until the court
Speaker 1: could weigh in. In France, the press was divided. Gentlemen
Speaker 1: Fop sentenced to three years in prison, declared Le Mattie
Speaker 1: with derision. Le Journal reported that Malau had not hesitated
Speaker 1: to completely sack a temple and make off with the
Speaker 1: ton of booty, but other newspapers, praising Malrou's literary promise,
Speaker 1: called the sentence a travesty. In Paris, meanwhile, Clara Malroe
Speaker 1: rallied some of France's most influential letterati behind her husband,
Speaker 1: repeating the argument that the temple had been abandoned and
Speaker 1: the objects were largely worthless. Andrea Guide, Andre Breton and
Speaker 1: other French authors petitioned France's Ministry of Justice to suspend
Speaker 1: the sentences. In October nineteen twenty four, the Saigon Court
Speaker 1: of Appeal, while striking down the verdict, still found the
Speaker 1: men guilty of damaging a protected site, but it reduced
Speaker 1: the sentences to a year for Malrou and six months
Speaker 1: for Chevassan. Nevertheless, the French government immediately suspended the sentences
Speaker 1: for those close to the crime. The absence of a
Speaker 1: punishment did not go down well. Jean Le Luba, a
Speaker 1: writer and the wife of Parmentier, described Malrou and Clara
Speaker 1: in a letter as two unpleasant pretensions and ill mannered scoundrels.
Speaker 1: Groliers would dismiss Malroe as le petit voulieur, the little thief,
Speaker 1: and remained furious that he had stayed out of prison.
Speaker 1: The secretive little so and so, he wrote to a friend,
Speaker 1: had hidden from us that he was a decadent man
Speaker 1: of letters in order to pass himself off in our
Speaker 1: eyes as a well informed archaeologist. In nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 1: the appeals court issued its final judgment, reaffirming the men's guilt,
Speaker 1: but by then the matter was moot. Malrou would never
Speaker 1: apologize for what he had done, yet the enforced sojourn
Speaker 1: in Panampen and later in Saigon while awaiting his appeal
Speaker 1: seemed to shake him out of his apolitical self absorption.
Speaker 1: Genovise says Malaux had spent months observing the French colonial
Speaker 1: systems under belly, the theft of antiquities by corrupt officials,
Speaker 1: the casual racism and cruelty, heavy handed attempts to stifle
Speaker 1: anti French pro tests and the press. Only months after
Speaker 1: his return to France in late nineteen twenty four, he
Speaker 1: and Clara traveled back to Saigon, where he founded a
Speaker 1: pro independence newspaper called Lindushin and joined the Young Annam movement,
Speaker 1: which opposed the French presence in the region. Malrou moved
Speaker 1: from political indifference to political commitment, wrote the French scholar
Speaker 1: Raoul Jennaar in How Malroux Became Malrou published in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: The Looter of Cambodia's patrimony had morphed into an agitator
Speaker 1: for the anti colonial cause. Vietnam also served as a
Speaker 1: jumping off point for Malrou's next adventures. In nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: on a trip to Hong Kong to buy linotype for
Speaker 1: his newspaper, which was later squeezed out of business by
Speaker 1: French authorities, he took an excursion up the Pearl River
Speaker 1: to Canton. Clashes were breaking out between communist workers and
Speaker 1: the right wing Kuomintang government led by Shang Kai Shehek.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty eight, Malro published The Conquerors, a novel
Speaker 1: about the Canton uprising, and it gave the author what
Speaker 1: he had long craved, recognition as a major literary voice
Speaker 1: in man's fate. His masterpiece, published five years later, Malro
Speaker 1: chronicled the heroics of a failed communist uprising in Shanghai
Speaker 1: and a massacre of sympathizers by the Kiomintang. All that
Speaker 1: men are willing to die for beyond self interest tends
Speaker 1: to justify that fate by giving it a foundation in dignity,
Speaker 1: he wrote. Malrou regarded communism as a powerful force against injustice,
Speaker 1: and he romanticized armed struggle. It was some observed as
Speaker 1: if he needed to redeem himself after the courts had
Speaker 1: branded him a criminal. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening, and have a great day.