Claude Grégory

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Claude Grégory , maiden name Claude Zalta , (born January 8, 1921 in Joinville-le-Pont , Seine-et-Marne department , † April 24, 2010 in Banon , Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department ) was a French journalist , publishing director of the Club français du livre and founder of the Encyclopædia Universalis .

Life

Claude Zalta's father was a doctor. In the 1940s, Claude Zalta went to college. At the same time, he tried his hand at the subjects of pharmacy, mathematics, philosophy and literature. With the outbreak of the Second World War, his study plans were broken. In order to escape the compulsory labor service , he joined the Resistance in 1943 and called himself Claude Grégory from then on.

He was arrested and sentenced to death, but managed to escape. The actor Francis Blanche , his schoolmate, helped him to find a hiding place after his escape. After the war, the two men became brothers-in-law because they each married one of two sisters.

In 1944 he joined the daily Ce Soir , as a theater and literary critic at the side of Louis Aragon . At that time he was a believer in the communist world of thought. He became friends with the sociologist Edgar Morin ; this friendship lasted all his life. In 1949, however, he broke with the French Communist Party . He first worked as a radio journalist before he found a job at the Club français du livre in 1952. There he first rose to the position of editor-in-chief and finally to general director.

Under his direction, the complete works of Diderot , Victor Hugo , and Shakespeare were published, but also contemporary works such as Les Gommes by Alain Robbe-Grillet .

In 1964, Claude Grégory initiated the Encyclopædia Universalis, as a cooperation project between the Club français du livre and the Encyclopædia Britannica . He placed the focus of this project on the depth of the content: “We don't want to be exhaustive, but rather selective. We do not pretend to take stock of the knowledge we have achieved, but rather to record the points from which knowledge of our day advances. ”The first volume of this novel and original encyclopedia was published in 1968.

Grégory expected his authors to be committed when dealing with their subjects. In certain cases, a special typographical distinction indicated controversial debates. Another working principle was the interdisciplinary editing. He himself took part in the content work by designing the three-volume thesaurus and the one-volume Organum , in which the relationships between fields of knowledge are shown in graphic form. He also wrote the two articles Zen and Pensée chinoise , a passionate expert on Buddhism and Chinese philosophy .

In 1976 he retired from publishing to Banon in the Alps of Provence.

literature

  • Alain Beuve-Méry: Claude Grégory . Le Monde , 11 May 2010, page 25.

Notes and individual evidence

  1. ^ Directeur littéraire
  2. ↑ "Nous ne pas à être cherchons exhaustifs, corn sélectifs. Nous ne prétendons pas établir un bilan des connaissances acquises, mais repérer les point à partir desquels aujourd'hui le savoir progresse. »Le Monde, May 11, 2010, p. 25.
  3. ↑ Chinese world of thought

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grégory, Claude
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zalta, Claude
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French journalist and founder of the Encyclopædia Universalis
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Joinville-le-Pont , Department ofSeine-et-Marne
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 2010
Place of death Banon , Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department