Louis Calaferte
Writing
Louis Calaferte (14 July 1928 - 2 May 1994) was an Italian-born French naturalized novelist. He was born in Turin, Italy, but emigrated to France with his parents when he was very young, settling in a Lyon suburb where he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence. In 1947, he set out for Paris to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, where he found a love for writing instead. Over the span of his career, he published a variety of works, including âa fantastic profusion of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poems and erotica of a particularly distinguished vulgarity that created genuine excitement in the most blase connoisseurâ. This writing style resulted in a variety of literary prizes, including the Prix de lâAcademie Française for Ebauche dâun autoportrait in 1983; for a collection of poems, Londoniennes in 1985; and for a collection of short stories, Promenades dans un parc in 1987. Calaferte died in Dijon, France on 2 May 1994. In his early teens, Calaferte worked as an errand boy in a battery factory and later began work as a general laborer. During this time, he enjoyed reading books; subsequently, in 1947 he moved to Paris, where he got a job at OdĂ©on - ThĂ©Ăątre de l'Europe (formerly the ThĂ©Ăątre de lâOdĂ©on) as a theatre extra. It was then and there that he wrote his first plays. One of them was performed at a preview performance at ThĂ©Ăątre d'Angers, earning him a standing ovation at the age of twenty. With the support of his âliterary heroâ Joseph Kessel, he had Requiem des innocents published by Ăditions Julliard in 1952. This work was a culmination of childhood memories in which Calaferteâs rebellious writing style began to emerge. This first book had great success and was soon followed by the publication of Partage des vivants (The Lot of the Living) in 1953. These two youthful works would be severely criticized by the author twenty five years later. He is quoted as saying: âIf I had to name two of my books that I loathe, it would be the first two; I would gladly see them disappearâ. In 1956, he moved to Mornant in the Monts du Lyonnais, where he wrote Septentrion, a work accused of being pornographic, and which was consequently censored and banned from being sold. It was reprinted only twenty years later, on the initiative of GĂ©rard Bourgadier at Ăditions DenoĂ«l, a French publishing house. In this largely autobiographical and erotic novel, Calaferte uses first-person narrative to recount the wanderings of a novice writer, his time spent secretly reading while working as a laborer (as a child, the protagonist would hide in public toilets, reading there very happily), and his encounters with women. The most important female figure in the novel is without a doubt Nora, a Dutch woman who represents female emancipation and social success. Calaferte continued to regularly publish collections of poems and stories of an intimate and sensual nature; some of these were dreamlike and strange, and they were often linked to childhood. His plays explored the theme of family relations, using both a humorous and troubling tone. According to director Patrick Pelloquet, â Louis Calaferteâs characters are more of a stereotype for certain behavior than characters in the strictest sense of the wordâ. ... Source: Article "Louis Calaferte" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
