Malcolm de Chazal

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Malcolm de Chazal (born 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 emigrated from France to Mauritius in the 18th century, where they belonged to the economic and political aristocracy. His maternal grandfather was an officer in the British colonial power who had settled in Mauritius.

Chazal and an older brother studied sugar technology in the USA at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge from 1918 and graduated in 1924. After an internship in the Cuban sugar industry , he returned to Mauritius in 1925 and worked in the family estates in the sugar cane industry . He wrote several treatises on the agricultural crisis in the country. After a good ten years he gave up this position and between 1937 and 1957 only worked on the side in the country's electricity and telephone company. Instead, he devoted himself almost exclusively to writing and painting and let his siblings endure him.

Chazal spoke Creole , English and French, his first literary newspaper articles in French appeared in 1936. From 1940 he had a series of aphoristic notebooks printed in Port Louis under the titles Pensées I to Pensées VI (“Thoughts”). The seventh issue with aphorisms under the title Sens-Plastique, printed in 1945, and the eighth issue, published in 1947, formed the basis for the publication, which was published by Gallimard in France in 1948 . The surrealist André Breton praised the book, made Chazal known in France and appropriated him for surrealism . Chazal refused to categorize himself as a surrealist. His magical work influenced authors such as Georges Bataille , Jean Paulhan and Francis Ponge and among the painters Georges Braque and Jean Dubuffet .

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

In contrast to his 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, ereurs d'appréciation: réplique 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 . Adaptation from the French: Rolf A. Burkart. Berlin: Ed. Quatre en Samizdat, 1996
  • Pensées VII , The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1945
  • Le rocher de Sisyphe , Toulouse: L'Éther Vague-P. Thierry, 1996 (1951)
  • Petrusmok: mythe , Port Louis, Ile Maurice: Editions de la Table ovale, 1979 (1951)
  • Judas, ou la Trahison du prêtre . Drama. Port-Louis, Ile Maurice, Esclapon, 1953
  • Les Désamorantes. Satire-drame… suivi de Le Concile des poètes, théâtre prophétique . Port-Louis, 1954
  • Sens magique , Paris: Lachenal & Ritter, 1983 (1957)
  • Poèmes , Paris, JJ Pauvert, 1968
  • La Vie derrière les choses, Préface by Olivier Poivre d'Arvor
  • L'Ile Maurice: proto-historique, folklorique et légendaire , 1973
  • Sens unique , 1974
  • L'homme et la connaissance , 1974
    • Faces in slow motion . From the Franz. By Thomas Schwab. Frankfurt am Main: Dielmann 1998
  • Jean-Louis Joubert; Kumari R. Issur: Comment devenir un génie? : chroniques , Paris: P. Rey, 2006 (anthology and bibliography)
  • Robert Furlong; Christophe Cassiau-Haurie: autobiography spiritual , Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008
  • Moïse . Drama, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008

literature

  • Martine Mathieu-Job: Chazal, Malcolm de , in: Christiane Chaulet Achour; Corinne Blanchaud: Dictionnaire des écrivains francophones classiques. Afrique sub-saharienne, Caraïbe, Maghreb, Machrek, Océan India . Paris: Champion 2010. Volume 1, pp. 92-98
  • Laurent Beaufils: Malcolm de Chazal: quelques aspects de l'homme et de son œuvre . Paris: La Différence, 1995
  • Laurent Beaufils: Sur Malcolm de Chazal . Toulouse, France: Ether vague 1996
  • Hélène Baligadoo: Chazal: un génie dans l'île joyeuse , Port Louis, Mauritius: Christian Le Comte, 2009
  • Bernard Violet: à la rencontre de Malcolm de Chazal . Paris: P. Rey, 2011

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Martine Mathieu-Job: Chazal, Malcolm de , 2010, pp. 92–98
personal data
SURNAME Chazal, Malcolm de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mauritian writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Port Louis
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1981
Place of death Curepipe