Pierre-Jakez Hélias

Pêr-Jakez Helias, baptised Pierre-Jacques Hélias, nom de plume Pierre-Jakez Hélias (1914–1995) was a Breton stage actor, journalist, author, poet, and writer for radio who worked in the French and Breton languages. For many years he directed a weekly radio programme in the Breton language and co-founded a summer festival at Quimper which became the Festival de Cornouaille.

Helias was born in 1914 in Pouldreuzig, Penn-ar-Bed, Brittany. His father, Pierre-Alain Hélias, was a native of the nearby village of Plozévet. Helias' mother, Marie-Jeanne Le Goff, had grown up in Pouldreuzic, to which her husband moved after their wedding in 1913. Hélias' paternal grandfather, Yann Helias, was a tenant farmer, sabot-maker, and storyteller known in Plozévet as Yann ar Burzudou ("Yann the Wonder-Man").

Pierre-Alain Hélias had previously served at Vannes in an artillery unit of the French Army and, upon the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, he was recalled to active service. Pierre-J...