Maurice Girodias
Maurice Girodias (born April 12, 1919 in Paris as Maurice Kahane , † July 3, 1990 in Paris) was a French publisher and night club operator. In Paris he founded the legendary Olympia Press Verlag, which specializes in erotic literature for tourists and is economically successful, and which was present on the market under various imprints until the 1970s. The last books he published were his autobiography (1980) and a book on Henry Kissinger (1974).
The books published in the ranks of the Olympia Press were banned in various countries, including Great Britain , because of their sexual content, which was too explicit for the time, but this also boosted sales.
Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Sexus , Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs , SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas and Nabokov's Lolita have appeared in his publishing house, among others . In his early days, Samuel Beckett wrote pornographic books for the publisher under a pseudonym in order to keep himself afloat financially.
Maurice Girodias took over the business (at that time under the name Obelisk Press ) from his father, Manchester- born Jack Kahane (1887–1939), but for understandable reasons dropped the surname Kahane when the Germans invaded in 1940 and instead made it less suspicious sounding birth name of the mother adopted.
Since 1934 he was already active in his father's publishing house, which incidentally also wrote erotic books himself (e.g. Girodias made the disturbing drawing on the original edition of Tropic of Cancer ). After the war, the publisher's books were repeatedly confiscated, entire editions destroyed and Maurice Girodias sentenced to various fines for causing public nuisance , which was not least due to the fact that the American and British authorities, who were a thorn in the side of his publisher, put appropriate political pressure on the French judiciary. Maurice Girodias rewarded his writers very poorly or not at all and is thus causing further trouble. Nerve-racking, sometimes decades-long processes with the authors were more the rule than the exception.
In 1964 Maurice Girodias was imprisoned for one year and was sentenced to the highest fine ever imposed on a publisher (USD 20,000). With that he was completely ruined. His publishing career was definitely brought to an end when he was banned from the profession for twenty years.
Maurice Girodias died on July 3, 1990 of a heart attack.
Sources / literature (selection)
- Maurice Girodias. A French Publisher And an Author . In: New York Times , Issued July 5, 1990
- Who am I? In: Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung , edition November 12, 2009
- Encyclopædia Britannica (2009)
- Jörg Schröder tells Ernst Herhaus: Siegfried. March Verlag 1972, ISBN 3-88880-013-7
Individual evidence
- ^ Ginette Castro: American feminism: A Contemporary History. New York University Press, New York 1990, p. 73: "Published in 1968 in French by Maurice Girodias, who saw there an excellent commercial opportunity after Solanas had shot at Andy Warhol, the SCUM Manifesto was much talked about in France as well as the United States [...] "
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Girodias, Maurice |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French publisher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 12, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd July 1990 |
| Place of death | Paris |