“Three blue roofs with red ridges, an iron cross in an ashen sky. Atop the highest roof, covered with green moss, seabirds meditate on time…”
Anjela DUVLA
Who is Anjela Duval?
Farmer, poet and emblematic figure of 20th-century Brittany, Anjela Duval embodies a rare voice: that of the land, the Breton language and an intimate resistance to galloping modernity. Her whole life is rooted in Brittany, which she has never left, nor betrayed.
Born in 1905 in Traoñ-an-Dour, a hamlet in the commune of Le Vieux-Marché (Côtes-d’Armor), Anjela Duval spent her life on the family farm. She worked there alone after her parents’ death, cultivating the land while observing with sorrow the mutations of the rural world. This simple life, close to nature, forged her poetry.
She writes exclusively in Breton, her mother tongue, which she passionately defends. It was only in the late 1960s that she came to the attention of the general public, thanks to Breton television and the support of cultural activists. Her poems, imbued with melancholy, love of the land and spirituality, sound like a song of resistance.
Anjela Duval has never left her home in Traoñ-an-Dour, now a place of memory. Her connection to Brittany is absolute, visceral: she embodies its land, language and soul, with a poignant loyalty.
Today, her work is taught, sung and translated. She is a powerful symbol of living Breton culture, poetic commitment and luminous humility. In Brittany, her name has become a familiar whisper, that of the woman who spoke to the world while staying at home.