Alain Gheerbrant

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Alain Gheerbrant
Alain026.jpg
Born(1920-12-27)27 December 1920
Paris, France
Died21 February 2013(2013-02-21) (aged 92)
Paris, France[1]
Alma materLycée Saint-Jean-de-Passy
OccupationWriter, poet, editor, explorer

Alain Gheerbrant (27 December 1920 – 21 February 2013) was a French writer, editor, poet and explorer, noted for his expedition inside the basins of Amazonian rivers.[1]

Career[]

Alain Gheerbrant was the first avant-garde publisher, founder of the publishing house K Éditeur,[2] which published in particular the works by Antonin Artaud, Benjamin Péret, Georges Bataille, Aimé Césaire, et cetera. For the second edition of Story of the Eye by Bataille, Gheerbrant introduced Bataille to the German artist Hans Bellmer in May 1946: "It was tempting, says Gheerbrant, to make a dialogue between a papist and a Lutheran on their common obsession. One's Nordic and surgical precision was made to give shape to the nocturnal and romantic imaginations of the other. The project took their common approval from the outset."[3] Moreover, the book has been entirely rewritten by Bataille himself, still published by K Éditeur.

From 1948 to 1950, Alain Gheerbrant led the Orinoco-Amazon expedition. He travelled through the basin of both rivers for two years and wrote of his travels in L'Expédition Orénoque-Amazone (1952). He is considered the first Westerner who had peaceful contact with the Yanomami Indians and also the first to cross the Parima Mountains between 1948 and 1950. In 1952, he directed a documentary film called Des hommes qu'on appelle sauvages.[4]

He has produced numerous reports all over the world and published Dictionnaire des symboles in 1982, a collaborative work with Jean Chevalier, an encyclopaedia of cultural anthropology about the symbolism of myths and folklore, which was republished 19 times between 1982 and 1997. He authored an illustrated pocket book for the "Découvertes Gallimard" collection, L'Amazone, un géant blessé (1988), which has been translated into eleven languages, including English. In 1995, he released his memoir entitled La Transversale.[5]

Selected bibliography[]

  • L'expédition Orénoque-Amazone (1948–1950), « Hors série Connaissance ». Éditions Gallimard, 1952
  • Congo noir et blanc, « Hors série Connaissance ». Éditions Gallimard, 1956
  • The Incas, Orion Press, 1961
  • Journey to the Far Amazon: An Expedition Into Unknown Territory, Simon & Schuster, 1964
  • The Rebel Church in Latin America, Penguin Books, 1974 (Pelican Latin American Library)
  • Collab. with Jean Chevalier, Dictionnaire des symboles, Éditions Robert Laffont, 1982
    • Dictionary of Symbols, Penguin Books, 1996
  • L'Amazone, un géant blessé, collection « Découvertes Gallimard » (nº 40), série Histoire. Éditions Gallimard, 1988 (new edition in 2005)[6]
    • US edition – The Amazon: Past, Present, and Future, "Abrams Discoveries" series. Harry N. Abrams, 1992
    • UK edition – The Amazon: Past, Present and Future, 'New Horizons' series. Thames & Hudson, 1992
  • La Transversale, Actes Sud, 1998

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Décès d'Alain Gheerbrant, éditeur, ethnologue et écrivain". livreshebdo.fr (in French). 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
  2. ^ Gheerbrant, Alain; Aichelbaum, Léon (1991). K éditeur (in French). Cognac: Le Temps qu'il fait. ISBN 9782868531094.
  3. ^ Gheerbrant, Alain; Aichelbaum, Léon (1991). K éditeur. Coll. « La Part du Livre » (in French). Cognac: Le Temps qu'il fait. p. 18. ISBN 9782868531094.
  4. ^ "Alain Gheerbrant, Director". imdb.com. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
  5. ^ "Alain Gheerbrant". penguinrandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
  6. ^ "L'Amazone, un géant blessé, collection Découvertes Gallimard (n° 40)". gallimard.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-02-05.
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