Albert Cossery
Encyclopedia
Albert Cossery was an Egypt
ian-born French
writer of Greek Orthodox Syria
n and Lebanese
descent, born in Cairo
.
, Albert Cossery ( Arabic: البرت قصيري) emigrated to Paris
. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008.
In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which "laziness" is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: "So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it." At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliés de Dieu ("Men God Forgot"). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell
, Albert Camus
, Jean Genet
and Giacometti.
Cossery died on June 22, 2008, aged 94.
Some of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller
, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952) and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981).
In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Académie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL.
On May 25, 2010, two more of Cossery's novels were published in English translation: Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy (New Directions) and Anna Moschovakis' Violence and Derision (NYRB Classics).
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian-born French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
writer of Greek Orthodox Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n and Lebanese
Lebanese people
The Lebanese people are a nation and ethnic group of Levantine people originating in what is today the country of Lebanon, including those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state....
descent, born in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
.
Life
Son of small property owners in Cairo, at the age of 17, inspired by reading Honoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, Albert Cossery ( Arabic: البرت قصيري) emigrated to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008.
In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which "laziness" is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: "So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it." At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliés de Dieu ("Men God Forgot"). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...
, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
and Giacometti.
Cossery died on June 22, 2008, aged 94.
Work
His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vangrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine "anarchist" or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor.Some of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952) and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981).
In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Académie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL.
On May 25, 2010, two more of Cossery's novels were published in English translation: Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy (New Directions) and Anna Moschovakis' Violence and Derision (NYRB Classics).
Novels
- Les hommes oubliés de Dieu / Men God Forgot (1940)
- La maison de la mort certaine / The House of Certain Death (1944)
- Les fainéants dans la vallée fertile / The Lazy Ones (1948)
- Mendiants et Orgueilleux / Proud Beggars (1955)
- La violence et la dérision / Violence and Derision, also called The Jokers, translation by Anna Moschovakis, New York Review BooksNew York Review BooksNew York Review Books is the publishing house of The New York Review of Books. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, and The New York Review Children's Collection....
(2010) ISBN 1-59017-325-2 - Un complot de saltimbanques / A Splendid Conspiracy (1975)
- Une ambition dans le désert (1984)
- Les couleurs de l'infamie (1999)
- A Splendid Conspiracy. translation by Alyson Waters, New Directions Publishing (2010) ISBN 0-8112-1779-5
Films
- In 1978 Les fainéants dans la vallée fertile was made into a film by the Greek director Nikos Panagiotopoulos. (First Prize at the Locarno Film FestivalLocarno International Film FestivalThe Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
. Second Prize at the Chicago Film FestivalChicago International Film FestivalThe Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America....
). (http://www.cinefiches.com/film.php?id_film=42838) - Beggars and Noblemen (1991) and La Violence et la dérision (2004) were made into movies by the female Egyptian film director Asmaa El-Bakry.
- He was the screenwriter for Les Guichets du LouvreLes Guichets du LouvreBlack Thursday is a French film from 1974 directed by Michel Mitrani. It was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival.- Synopsis :On 16 July 1942, in Paris...
.