Edmond Jabès

Edmond Jabès

Edmond Jabès (French: [ʒabɛs]; Hebrew: אדמון ז'אבס‎‎, Arabic: إدمون جابيس‎‎; Cairo, April 16, 1912^[1] – Paris, January 2, 1991) was a French writer and poet of an Egyptian origin, and one of the best known literary figures to write in French after World War II. The work he produced when living in France in the late 1950s until his death in 1991 is highly original in its form and its breadth.

Life

The son of a prominent Jewish family in Egypt going back to the 15th century, he was born and brought up in Cairo where he received a classical French education. He began publishing in French and writing for the theater at an early age. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1952 for his literary accomplishments. His work after the exile from Egypt reflects a consciousness deeply troubled by the brutal reality of Auschwitz. His work exhibits a profound sense of melancholy and an acute sense that the Jew is constituted and always remains in exile.

When Egypt expelled its Jewish population (Suez Crisis), Jabès fled to Paris in 1956, which he had first visited in the 1930s. There he rekindled friendships with the surrealists although he was never formally a member of that group. He became a French citizen in 1967, the same year that he received the honor of being one of four French writers (alongside Sartre, Camus, and Lévi-Strauss) to present his works at the World Exposition in Montreal. Further accolades followed—the Prix des Critiques in 1972 and a commission as an officer in the Legion of Honor in 1986. In 1987, he received France's Grand National Prize for Poetry (Grand Prix national de la poésie). Jabès's cremation ceremony took place a few days after his death – at age 78 – at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Works

Jabès is best remembered for his books of poetry, often published in multi-volume cycles, at least fourteen volumes translated by Rosmarie Waldrop – Jabès's primary English translator. They often featured references to Jewish mysticism and kabbalah.

Selected bibliography

In English (trans. Rosmarie Waldrop)

• The Book of Questions, Wesleyan University Press, 1976–1984

I. The Book of Questions, 1976

II / III. The Book of Yukel / Return to the Book, 1977

IV / V / VI. Yaël, Elya, Aely, 1983

VII. El, or the Last Book, 1984

• The Book of Dialogue, Wesleyan University Press, 1987
• The Book of Shares, Chicago UP, 1989
• The Book of Resemblances, Wesleyan University Press, 1990

I. The Book of Resemblances, 1990

II. Intimations The Desert, 1991

III. The Ineffaceable The Unperceived, 1992

• From the Book to the Book [A Jabès Reader], Wesleyan UP, 1991
• A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book, Wesleyan UP, 1993
• The Book of Margins, Chicago UP, 1993
• The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion, Stanford University Press, 1996
• Desire for a Beginning Dread of One Single End, Granary Books, 2001

In English (by other translators)

• A Share of Ink, [Selected Short Poems] trans. Anthony Rudolf, Menard Press, 1979
• If There Were Anywhere But Desert; Selected Poems, trans. Keith Waldrop; "Introduction" by Paul Auster, "Afterword" by Robert Duncan, Station Hill Press, 1988
• From the Desert to the Book: Dialogues with Marcel Cohen, trans. Pierre Joris, Station Hill, 1990

Selected works on Jabès (in English)

• Paul Auster, "Interview with Edmond Jabès", Montemora, #6 (1979), reprinted in The Sin of the Book
• —, "Book of the Dead", (1976), essay, published in The Art of Hunger
• Jacques Derrida, "Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book", essay, published in Writing and Difference, Routledge, 2002
• Eric Gould, ed., The Sin of the Book: Edmond Jabès, University of Nebraska Press, 1985
• —, Studies in 20th Century Literature, 12, No.1: Edmond Jabès Issue (Fall 1987)
• Steven Jaron, Edmond Jabès: The Hazard of Exile (Oxford: Legenda, 2003)
• Warren Motte Jr., Questioning Edmond Jabès, University of Nebraska Press, 1990
• Rosmarie Waldrop, Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès, Wesleyan University Press, 2002
• Jason Weiss, Writing at Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers, University of Iowa Press, 1991
• Mark Rudman, "Questions about Questions", Diverse Voices, Story Line Press, 1992
• Gary D. Mole, "Lévinas, Blanchot, Jabès: Figures of Estrangement", University Press of Florida Press, 1997

1. Edmond Jabès, From the Book to the Book: An Edmond Jabès Reader (Wesleyan University Press, 1991) p xxi

Aimée Israel-Pelletier, "Edmond Jabès, Jacques Hassoun, and Melancholy: The Second Exodus in the Shadow of the Holocaust" in MLN French Issue, 2008

Notes

• Ecrire le livre : autour d'Edmond Jabès, Actes du colloque de Cerisy,Seyssel,Champ Vallon,1989.
• Maurice BLANCHOT - L'Amitié,Paris,Gallimard,1971.
• Llewellyn BROWN - Le rythme et le chiffre : Le Livre des questions d'Edmond Jabès,Littérature n°103,Paris,Larousse,1996.
• Jaques DERRIDA - L'Ecriturre et la différence,Paris,Seuil,1967.
• Edmond JABES, Marcel COHEN (entretiens),Paris,Belfond,1980.
• Daniel LANÇON -Jabès l'Egyptien,Paris,Jean-Michel Place,1999.

External links

• EPC Jabès Homepage @ the Electronic Poetry Center