Effective period / Period of releases: 1968 - 1974

André Malraux (November 3, 1901 – November 23, 1976) was a French author, adventurer and statesman, and a dominant figure in French politics and culture.

At the age of 21, Malraux left for Cambodia, where he undertook an expedition into remote jungle areas in search of lost temples. On his return to France, he published several books, including La Condition Humaine, a novel about a communist uprising in Shanghai, that won him the 1933 Prix Goncourt.

In the 1930s Malraux was active in the anti-Fascist Popular Front in France. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in, and helping to organise, their fledging air force.

At the outbreak of Second World War Malraux joined the French Army. He was captured in 1940 during the Western Offensive but escaped and later joined the French Resistance. Later he led a tank unit Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in the takeover of Stuttgart.

After the war General Charles de Gaulle appointed Malraux as his Minister for Information (1945-1946). During this post-war period he also worked on the first of his books on art, The Psychology of Art. He became France's first Minister of Culture in de Gaulle's second government from 1960 to 1969. Among many other initiatives, he created maisons de la culture in a number of provincial cities and worked to preserve France's national heritage.