GARY, Romain

   Pseudonym of French writer and diplomat Romain Kacewgari (later changed to Kassevgari) (1914-1980) born in Tiflis, Georgia, of Polish parents. In WWII he was active in the French Resistance. RG was much praised for suchnovels outside the sf field as Les racines du ciel (1956; trans Jonathan Griffin as The Roots of Heaven 1958 US), for which he was awarded the PrixGoncourt. An early and untranslated sf novel, Tulipe (1946), is about the Blacks taking over Earth. In his later work he utilizes generic material usually to point up ethical issues, and La danse de Gengis Cohn (1967; trans by RG as The Dance of Genghis Cohn 1968 US), with its sequel, La tete coupable (1968 trans by RG as The Guilty Head 1969 US), are certainly FABULATIONS. Rather similar to the inferior On A Dark Night (1949) byAnthony WEST, they depict a supernatural transference of a victim's personality into the body of a Nazi. In Genghis Cohn it is Cohn himself, a Yiddish comedian, who, as a dybbuk, enters the mind of the SS officer whoordered the massacre in which Cohn was shot. The novel takes place in the late 1960s, with the former officer, now a police superintendent, obsessed by his dybbuk, who torments him, and with Germany itself tormented by an incursion of allegorical figures representative of her spiritual plight. Gloire a nos illustres pionniers (coll 1962; trans Richard Howard asHissing Tales 1964 US) contains some sf, notably the title story. In The Gasp (1973 US; in French as Charge d'ame 1978 France) it turns out that the elan vital which escapes from the body at the moment of death can be used in warfare. RG was a sharp, clear-headed and passionate novelist of considerable stature.

   JC

   Other work: The Talent Scout (ms? trans John Markham Beach 1961 US).

   See also: ESCHATOLOGY; HISTORY OF SF; POWER SOURCES; RELIGION.