Maurice G. Dantec

Maurice Georges Dantec (born June 13, 1959 in Grenoble , † June 25, 2016 in Montreal ) was a Canadian by choice and described himself as a "French-speaking North American writer".

biography

Youth and literary beginnings

Maurice George Dantec grew up in a communist family. From 1970 he attended the Romain-Rolland high school in Ivry-sur-Seine , a “red” suburb of Paris . At this school he met the educator Jean-Bernard Pouy , who opened his eyes to the science fiction literature of the 1970s and to the Situationist International . After graduating from high school, he began studying French literary studies, which he broke off to form the punk rock bands État d'Urgence and Artefact . The musical adventures went hand in hand with a job as an editor and lasted until 1980.

In 1991, while working for a telemarketing agency, he decided to become a full-time writer. The result was La Sirène rouge (Eng: The Red Siren), his first novel, a middle ground between fiction and crime thriller, which won the “ Trophée 813 ” prize for the best detective novel. Two years later he wrote his second novel Les Racines du mal (German: The roots of evil, the translation into German is pending), a mixture of science fiction, detective novel, thriller and essay, which won him the 1996 Grand Prix de l 'Imaginaire and the Rosny Aîné award.

Dantec triggered multiple hostilities with its provocative public statements.

Exile in Quebec

In 1994 and 1995 he traveled to the former Yugoslavia as a "contemporary witness". France seemed too weak to him and Europe was in complete disintegration. He wanted to get away from the violence in the suburbs and opted for exile in Montreal . In 1998 he finally emigrated to Canada, where he wrote his third novel "Babylon Babies", on which the film Babylon AD is based.

Novelist or essayist?

In the autobiographical story Le Théâtre des opérations, journal métaphysique et polémique , the first volume of which Manuel de survie en territoire zéro (English: Instructions for survival in the zero zone) was published in 2000, he gave free rein to his thoughts and put them to the test the question about his project: "But what is this strange object, which is neither diary, nor social criticism, nor critical story, nor philosophical accusation, nor moral sabotage, nor creed and yet a little of all of this at the same time, produced in many parallels. ”In 2001 Dantec delivered a second volume with the title Laboratoire de catastrophe générale (Eng .: Laboratory of general catastrophes), which is presented in diary form. Dantec used the abbreviation "TdO" for the series "Théâtre des opération".

Villa Vortex and the "literary virus"

With Villa Vortex the author came back to fiction in 2003, whereby the project "TdO" had left its mark. The expression of his thoughts now appeared inextricably linked to his work of fiction, which is why he wanted to spread Villa Vortex as an image of viral literature. He considered "viral literature" to be necessary to get a debate going. When Dantec published an email on the Bloc Identitaire website in 2004, his opponents and some media accused him of rapprochement with right-wing extremism . He himself specified his standpoint, which was in contrast to the Block Identitaire, by taking sides with America and Israel and considered himself a Zionist. The Gallimard publishing house refused to publish the third volume from the TdO series, entitled American Black Box . The Flammarion publishing house offered to publish it if some passages were censored. Dantec refused and switched to Albin Michel , who published the science fiction novel Cosmos Incorporated on August 25, 2005 and American Black Box in 2006 in uncensored form.

From 2004 to 2006 Dantec wrote for the conservative magazine Égards and the web journal RING where he a. a. voted “No” in the 2005 referendum in France on the European Constitution . In the course of two years he provided around 20 texts for online publications and magazines.

In 2006, Grande Jonction appeared as a sequel to Cosmos Incorporated , a "Western about infinity, electricity, the end of mankind and machines" ("Esprits libres", France September 2, 2006). The novel received a very good response from the critics, as Maurice Dantec had not received it since the publication of Les racines du mal in 1996. With the first two volumes of this trilogy, he was no longer considered a polemicist, but was again recognized as a writer.

In autumn 2007 Artefact: machines à écrire 1.0 appeared. Thanks to a clause in his contract with Albin Michel that the writer had to deliver a collection of novellas, Dantec writes a "three-fold" novel, a "novel in three persons", which contains three separate novels: "Each of the three novels has a direct influence on the others, without it being the consequence or the resumption of the others. "

As a reflection on identity and otherness, Artefact: machines à écrire 1.0 is also and above all a reflection on the role of the writer and his relationship to his own creative process.

In 2009 the novel Comme le fantôme d'un jazzman dans la station mir en deroute (Like the ghost of a jazzman in MIR on the wrong track) was published by Albin Michel.

Dantec died in Montreal on June 27, 2016 at the age of 57.

To date, none of Dantec's books has been translated into German.

Classification in literary history

Maurice G. Dantec's work is primarily in the tradition of science fiction and cyberfiction and the socially critical French roman noir of the 1950s and 1960s (including Léo Malet ) as well as the decidedly political French neo-polar of the 1970s and 1980s (including Jean -Patrick Manchette , Didier Daeninckx ). But he also undermines these influences when he formulates provocatively that the roman noir is based on the conviction that crime is constitutive of society. Usually, however, the roman noir is understood as a genre in which society appears to be jointly responsible for the crime of an individual.

Works

Novels

• La Sirène rouge , Paris: Gallimard, Série noire, 1993. ISBN 2-07-049385-7 (Trophée 813 du Meilleur Roman francophone 1994)
• Les Racines du mal , Paris: Gallimard, Série noire, 1995. ISBN 2-07-049495-0 (Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 1996, Prix Rosny Aîné 1996)
• Babylon babies , Paris: Gallimard, La Noire. 1999. ISBN 2-07-075471-5
• Villa Vortex: Liber mundi tome 1, Paris: Gallimard, La Noire, 2003. ISBN 2-07-075244-5
• Cosmos Incorporated , Paris: Albin Michel, 2005. ISBN 2-226-15852-9
• Grande jonction , Paris: Albin Michel, 2006. ISBN 2-226-17341-2
• Artefact: machines à écrire 1.0 , Paris: Albin Michel, 2007. ISBN 978-2-226-17975-3

Essays

• Manuel de survie en territoire zéro. Le Théâtre des opérations 1: journal métaphysique et polémique, 1999 . Paris: Gallimard, 2000. ISBN 2-07-075887-7
• Laboratoire de catastrophe générale. Le Théâtre des opérations 2: journal métaphysique et polémique, 2000-2001 . Paris: Gallimard, 2001. ISBN 2-07-076267-X
• American black box. Le Théâtre des opérations 3: journal métaphysique et polémique, 2002-2006 . Paris: Albin Michel, 2007. ISBN 978-2-226-17091-0

stories

• Artefact (2007)
• Dieu porte-t-il des lunettes noires? (1995)
• Là où tombent les Anges (1995)
• Le Prince de ce monde (2007)
• Quand clignote la mort électrique (1996)
• THX Baby (1994)
• Vers le nord du ciel (2007)

literature

• John Clute : Dantec, Maurice G. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition), version of July 25, 2019.
• Bernard Fauconnier: Dantec en son laboratoire . In: Magazine Littéraire 392, Nov. 2000, p. 50. - About: Le Théâtre des opérations: Journal métaphysique et polémique (2000).
• David Platten: Reading-Glasses, Guns and Robots: A History of Science in French Crime Fiction . In: French Cultural Studies 12.3, 2001, pp. 253–70. - On the importance of science at Gaston Leroux, Jean-Patrick Manchette and Dantec.
• David Rabouin: Dantec / Houellebecq: Le Temps des Prophètes? In: Magazine Littéraire 392, Nov. 2000, pp. 46-49.
• Lawrence R. Schehr: Dantec's Inferno . In: Alain-Philippe Durand and Naomi Mandel (eds.): Novels of the Contemporary Extreme . Continuum, London 2006, pp. 89-99. - About some of Dantec's topics such as capitalism, apocalypse, dehumanization.

Interviews

• Entretien avec Maurice G. Dantec par Virgile Jouanneau & Sandra Gabbai . In: Les ours , 18 mars 1996 ,.
• Interview with Maurice G. Dantec . In: Temps noir 5, June 2001.

Web links

• Literature by and about Maurice G. Dantec in the catalog of the German National Library
• Maurice G. Dantec on nooSFere (French)
• Maurice G. Dantec in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Works by and about Maurice G. Dantec at Open Library
• Maurice G. Dantec on LibraryThing (English)
• Maurice G. Dantec on Goodreads.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ L'écrivain Maurice G. Dantec est mort
2. ↑ Eric Holstein: Biography de Maurice G. Dantec . In: ActuSF , 2003 [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ mission wit libres , France 2 October of 2008.
4. ↑ He speaks of the authors of the roman noir being convinced of the "aspect constitutif du crime dans la société humaine": Entretien avec Maurice G. Dantec , par Virgile Jouanneau & Sandra Gabbai, in: Les ours , 18 mars 1996, [2] , P. 2.
5. ↑ Extensive interview