Malcolm de Chazal

Malcolm de Chazal (* September 12, 1902 at Vacoas, † October 1, 1981 in Curepipe ) was a Mauritian writer.

Life

Malcolm de Chazal was the thirteenth and last child of Edgar de Chazal and Emma Kellman. The de Chazal family had emigrated from France to Mauritius in the 18th century and belonged there the economic and political aristocracy. His maternal grandfather was an officer in the British colonial power, had become settled in Mauritius.

Chazal studied along with an older brother since 1918 sugar technology in the United States at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and graduated in 1924. After an internship in the sugar industry in Cuba, he returned to Mauritius in 1925 and worked in the family estates in the sugar cane industry. He wrote several treatises on the crisis in the agricultural sector of the country. After more than ten years, he gave up this position and worked between 1937-1957 only incidentally in the electricity and telephone company in the country. Instead, he devoted himself almost entirely to writing and painting and was kept by his siblings.

Chazal spoke Creole, English and French, his first literary newspaper articles published in French in 1936. Starting from 1940 he was in Port Louis a series of aphoristic booklets under the titles Pensées Pensées I to VI ( "thoughts" ) to print. The seventh book of aphorisms printed in 1945 under the title Sens- Plastique and the eighth book published in 1947 were the basis for the publication, which was published by Gallimard in France in 1948. The Surrealist André Breton praised the book, Chazal made ​​known in France and simplistic imitated him in surrealism. Chazal rejected for the categorization as a Surrealist from. His magical work influenced writers such as Georges Bataille, Jean Paulhan and Francis Ponge and among the painters Georges Braque and Jean Dubuffet.

Even in his other writings Filtrée La Vie (1949 ), Sens Magique (1957) and Poèmes (1968 ) formulated Chazal a magical literature that moves in the nature of Mauritius.

In contrast to its speculative and aphoristic texts, his painting focuses on naturalistic forms and landscapes in a primitive style. Chazal also wrote plays, poems and political essays.

Works (selection)

  • Under the pseudonym Medec: Une synthèse objective de la crise actuelle. Nouvelle Imprimerie Coopérative 1935
  • Nouvel essai d' économie politique, Nouvelle Imprimerie Coopérative 1935
  • With Philippe Galea: Erreurs de fait, d' erreurs appréciation: REPLIQUE à Une synthèse objective de la crise actuelle. Port Louis: General Printing & Stationery Cy, 1935..
  • Historique de notre change et de notre délégation à Londres, Nouvelle Imprimerie Coopérative 1936
  • Pensées I, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1940
  • La vie filtrée, 1940
  • Laboratoire central de contrôle, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1941
  • Pensées et Sens- Plastique, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1945 Plastic senses. Paraphrase from the French: Rolf A. Burkart. Berlin: Ed. Quatre en samizdat, 1996
  • Faces in slow motion. From the French by Thomas Schwab. Frankfurt am Main: Dielmann 1998
Vacoas-Phoenix Baton Rouge, Louisiana Magic realism WorldCat Integrated Authority File
541839
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