Benjamin Péret

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Benjamin Péret

Benjamin Péret (born July 4, 1899 in Rezé near Nantes , † September 18, 1959 in Paris ) was a French poet and writer of surrealism .

Life

At the age of twenty-one, Péret joined the Parisian Dadaists around Tristan Tzara , André Breton , Paul Éluard , Philippe Soupault , Max Ernst , Francis Picabia and others. In 1924 he co-founded surrealism. With Pierre Naville he published the first three issues of the newspaper La Révolution Surréaliste (12 issues 1924–1929). He joined in 1927 with Louis Aragon , André Breton, Paul Eluard and Pierre Unik the French Communist Party in order but soon the side of the Trotskyist switch opposition, how many of the Surrealists. From 1929–1931 he stayed in Brazil , but was imprisoned and deported for political activities. In Paris he was again associating with the Surrealists. From 1936 to 1937 he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the communist, later on the anarchist side (Column Durruti ). During this time he met the painter Remedios Varo , with whom he was married for ten years. In 1939 he was drafted into French military service, where he had to go to prison for forming a Trotskyist cell. He fled to Marseille , where he met other surrealists. Péret went into exile in Mexico from 1941 to 1947 , where he met the group of surrealist dissidents around the Austrian painter and theoretician Wolfgang Paalen and studied the culture of the Indians . He created anthologies with pre-Columbian myths; wrote the great poem Air Mexicain . In Mexico he was in close contact with Natalia Ivanovna Sedova , the widow of Leon Trotsky . After returning to Paris, he worked with André Breton until his death in 1959.

Péret's poetry was hardly known outside of Surrealism, but it was very popular in the group: Wolfgang Paalen : “How much I love and admire you. The few books of yours that I have with me are some of my greatest, jealously kept treasures. ”( Philippe Soupault :“ I would give the entire work of Paul Eluard for a poem by Péret. ”), The typical poet revolutionary of the surrealists , for André Breton his “most expensive and oldest comrade in arms”.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Paalen to Benjamin Péret, January 24, 1940 (Berlin, Paalen Archive)

Works

  • illustrated by Hans Arp Le passager de transatlantique (1921)
  • illustrated by Yves Tanguy Dormir dormir dans les pierres (1927)
  • Le grand jeu (1928)
  • illustrated by Pablo Picasso De derrière des fagots (1934)
  • illustrated by Max Ernst La Brebis galante (1949)
  • Le déshonneur des poètes (1945) German "The shame of the poets", Nautilus
  • Le gigot. Sa vie et son oeuvre (1957) German stories When the green Minna drove past , Nautilus

Œuvres complètes , so far 7 volumes, from José Corti

continue in German:

  • “The big game / Le grand jeu”: Selected poems. German / French, Rimbaud 2004 ISBN 3-89086-652-2
  • “I don't eat from this bread”, Edition Av 2003
  • together with Paul Eluard, “One hundred and fifty-two proverbs brought up to date”, Anabas 1995
  • “The Zaparo moon. Myths and Tales of America ”, Nautilus 1998
  • "Natural history", Renner 1984

Secondary literature

  • Jean-Christophe Bailly, Au-delà du langage. Une étude sur Benjamin Péret , Paris: Losfeld 1971
  • Claude Courtot, Introduction à la lecture de Benjamin Péret , Le Terrain Vague, 1965
  • John H. Matthews, Benjamin Péret , New York: Twaine 1975

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Péret, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French poet and surrealism writer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Rezé near Nantes
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1959
Place of death Paris