Edmond Jabès
Edmond Jabès ( born April 16, 1912 in Cairo, † January 2, 1991 in Paris) was a French writer and poet.
Life
Jabès was born in 1912 into a wealthy, French-speaking and Jewish parents house in Cairo. In the thirties he studied in Paris, but returned then back to his homeland. Although neither he nor his parents were practicing Jews, had Jabès 1956, when the living conditions for Jews in Egypt were getting worse during the Suez crisis, to emigrate to France. In 1967 he became a French citizen.
Jabès started his literary work in the forties and fifties with the publication of several books of poetry. His style at this time was heavily influenced by his friend and role model Max Jacob, with whom he led a lively correspondence 1935-1940. Even in Egypt, he also wrote several plays. A major success was, however, in France, he was as good as not even noticed.
The loss of home meant a decisive turning-point for his work. He began to look for himself and his situation in the ancient Jewish writings and later on. So he began the Talmud, Kabbalah and Torakommentare study.
Jabès initially remained in the Paris literary scene unknown, although his previously published books of poems collected under the title "The Batis ma Demeure " (Paris 1959) were published. It was his book " Le livre des questions " (1963 ), which he wrote most of it in the metro on the way to and from work and represents the fruit of his employment with the religious writings, made him known.
The " Book of Questions ", which grew to a Heptalogie, represented a novelty in the way of writing dar. It is not a coherent text, there is no storyline and no time of the action. Jabès himself called this form of literature " récit éclaté " one consisting of fragments of narrative.
The backbone is the story of a Jewish lovers, Yukel and Sarah, who were deported during the Holocaust. The content, however. Not in the form of a narrative, but in the form of fragments from Yukels and Sarah's diaries, discussions between rabbis, dead as living, poem -like passages, etc. transported, so that forms an increasingly complex collage of fragments with the time Jabès adds to this complexity, another dimension to this by turn creates in his book, books.
Although Jabès was during his time in Paris members of the Surrealist close (which his former friend Jacob because of the importance he attached to religion, disdain ), but he refused to join this or any other grouping. In his view, the dangers that takes a writer to be, should be borne by him alone, otherwise an important aspect of writing - perish - the risk.
The Italian composer Luigi Nono dedicated in 1987 Jabès the composition " Découvrir la subversion ". " Nono, the factory has not been fixed in written form, so that no further performances are possible " ( Jürg Stenzl ). The relationship between Nono, Jabès and the philosopher Massimo Cacciari documented in the publication " migrants "
Jabès received the 1972 Prix des Critiques for his work Elya of 1969.
Writings
- The Book of Questions. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 3-518-01848-5. ( French edition 1963)
- The memory and hand. Works on paper, paintings by Elisabeth Masé, Felix Philipp Ingold ed. Kleinheinrich, Münster, 1991, ISBN 3-926608-76-5
- The little book of unsuspected subversion. Dt. Felix Philipp Ingold Übers. Hanser, Munich, 1985, ISBN 3-446-20956-5.
- The predetermined path. Dt. Übers Monika noise Bacher. Merve Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-88396-126-4
- The font of the desert. Dt. Felix Philipp Ingold Übers. Merve, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-88396-070-5
- A stranger with a small book under his arm. Hanser, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-446-23435-7
- It takes its course. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1981, ISBN 3-518-01766-7
- Longing for a beginning, a horror of a single end. Dt. Felix Philipp Ingold Übers. Legueil, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-9802323-7-9
- From book to book. Selected Works. Dt. Felix Philipp Ingold Übers. Hanser, Munich, 1989, ISBN 3-446-14932-5