André Malraux was a French writer, explorer and statesman, who was born in Paris on 3 November 1901. He was self-taught through his love of books and paintings and his early acquaintance with avant-garde poets and artist. (Winegarten 268) He learned Oriental languages that came in handy during his time in Asia. Where he became extremely critical of the French colonial authorities in Indochina, helping to organize the Young Annam League and founded the newspaper Indochina in Chains.
             On his return to France he published his first novel, The Temptation of the West (1926). This was trailed by The Conquerors (1928), The Royal Way (1930) and Man's Fate (French: La Condition Humaine) (1934), an influential novel about the overcome of a collective government in Shangai and the options the losers have to face. "He used his experiences in Asia as background for his first novels, counting Man's Fate (1933), which won the Prix Goncourt [of literature]." (Bertram 53)
             "Malraux's career begins in mystery with the expedition to Indochina, the obscure affair of the missing statues, a short term of imprisonment, and a plunge into Eastern politics. The details of these matters are still unknown to us, but it is their resonance that counts. With all their shadow and uncertainty they nevertheless suggest a purity of adventure. Malraux entered the European consciousness not as a writer but as an event, as a symbolic figure somehow combining the magical qualities of youth and heroism with a sense of unlimited promise." (William Righter in The Rhetorical Hero, 1964)
             http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/malraux.htm
             Man's Fate was first published in the year 1933, as a fictional story of the early days of the Chinese Revolution. This novel remains an n influential term of psychological insight into the strength of political revolution. From the opening scene, in which Chinese terrorist Ch'en Ta...