Alain Borer

Alain Borer (born November 6, 1949, in Luxeuil-les-Bains, France is a French poet, travel writer, novelist, playwright, art critic, essayist, and specialist of the life and works of Arthur Rimbaud. He has been Professor of Aesthetics at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours-Angers-Le Mans from 1979 until 2014, and is Visiting Professor of French Literature at the University of Southern California (USC) since 2005. Alain Borer is the President of the national annual poetry festival ''Printemps des Poètes'', President of the ''Robert Ganzo Poetry Prize'' (sponsored by the Fondation de France), and President of the ''International Association of the Friends of Arthur Rimbaud''. He teaches a regular poetry workshop at the Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF – Editions Gallimard). In 2005, he received the Edouard Glissant Prize for the ensemble of his achievements, awarded by the University of Paris VIII. In 2011, he received the Prix Maurice-Genevois of the Académie Française. Alain Borer lives in Paris, in Los Angeles, and in Chaumussay (south of Tours, France).

BIOGRAPHY

Alain Borer was born, on November 6, 1949, and raised in Luxeuil-les-Bains, France. He received his Middle and High School education at the Institut Florimont in Geneva, Switzerland; there he founded and directed the student journal ''Le Bateau Ivre''. In 1970, in Nancy, France, during the first year of a preparatory class (“hypokhâgne”) for the entrance exam at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, directing again the student journal, he published a first book of poems, ''fi'' (published by Parisod in Lausanne, Switzerland). The following year, in Paris, where he pursued his studies in the humanities at the “khâgne” section of the Lycée Henri-IV, he entered in contact with writer and photographer Denis Roche and the poets of the avant-garde literary magazine Tel Quel. They would become the subject of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris VII, written under the direction of Julia Kristeva. In 1976, he travelled to Ethiopia, in the footsteps of Arthur Rimbaud, in preparation of the film ''Le Voleur de feu'' by Charles Brabant, with Léo Ferré, diffused on French television (TF1) in 1978. In the same year, he directed for Radio France the audiotapes collection Rimbaud, read by Laurent Terzieff.

Working as a limousine driver in order to pay for his studies, he publishes ''Souvenirs d’un chauffeur de maître'' (Memories of a Master Chauffeur) in Les Temps Modernes, May 1978. In 1979 he is appointed at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours as teacher of art theory; among his colleagues are the painters Pierre Antoniucci, Christian Henry, the sculptor Peter Briggs, etc. ; among the students who studied with him Bernard Calet, Richard Fauguet, Françoise Manceau, Laurent Mauvignier, François Pagé, and Ben l’Oncle Soul.

The name of Alain Borer is associated with that of Arthur Rimbaud, to whom he has devoted thirty years of his life, at least. While gathering what he calls a complete “rimbaldothèque” -- all the publications worldwide of Rimbaud's works from 1870 to 2000 --, Alain Borer explores the tracks of Arthur Rimbaud, his works and his journeys. He traveled to all the places on the map of what he calls “Rimbaldia” -- from Charleville to Java, from Marseille to London to Stockholm, from Harderwijk to Harar, and from Cyprus to Yemen. He looked for the house of Rimbaud in Aden from 1990 to 1996, and found it. He met with the last witnesses of Rimbaud's life, including Emilie Tessier Rimbaud in Vouziers, France; in Ethiopia, he collected oral testimonies. He met many famous Rimbaldians -- from Etiemble to Bob Dylan -- and collaborated with some of them including Allen Ginsberg, Philippe Soupault, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Hugo Pratt, and Bruno Sermonne.

Borer's translation of ''Rimbaud'', by Enid Starkie (Editions Flammarion, 1981), was a literary and commercial success. In the fall of 1984, two of Borer's books were published simultaneously: ''Rimbaud en Abyssinie'' (Rimbaud in Abyssinia), Editions Seuil, collection "Fiction & Cie", and, with Philippe Soupault, ''Un sieur Rimbaud, se disant négociant'' (A Mister Rimbaud, Claiming To Be A Trader), Editions Lachenal & Ritter. The latter title won in 1985 the prestigious Bordin Prize of the Académie Française. In 1986, Alain Borer published ''Adieu à Rimbaud''; in 1991 ''Rimbaud, l’heure de la fuite'' (Rimbaud, Time of Escape), illustrated by Hugo Pratt.
During these years, Alain Borer developed the notion of the unity of the life and the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, also after the poet stopped writing poetry. This was subsequently demonstrated in his book ''Œuvre-vie, Edition du Centenaire'' (Work-Life, the Centenary Edition), Editions Arléa, 1991, revealing the continuity in Rimbaud's life and work. The book presents ''“nothing but Rimbaud but all Rimbaud”'', chronologically. Both the method and the results were positively received by the majority of critics. The critic, for instance, of the newspaper ''Le Monde'': “A scrupulous reader, an all-knowing biographer, a lively spirit, [Borer's] erudition is effervescent, his pen sharp like a lightning bolt, and similarly to his model, his style is one of no-nonsense. The journeys and the many sites, the poems and the correspondence, are decoded mutually and simultaneously. He obeys straight away to René Char's summons: ''We must consider Rimbaud only in the perspective of poetry. Is that a scandal? His works and his life show an unrivalled coherence''.”

Starting in 1991, Alain Borer explores new fields of creativity and new subject matter. Between many other titles, he publishes in 2003 a novel, ''Koba'' (Editions Seuil), which will win the Joseph-Kessel Prize in 2003; in 2007, a play, ''Icare'' (Editions Seuil), winning the Apollinaire Award in 2008; in 1994, an essay on Joseph Beuys (Catalog of the Centre Pompidou). He continues to write poems, in three different registers (in lyrical cosmic lines, in "pataphysical" books, and in what he calls “noems”). After a first ''François Coupé'', Alain Borer has made “book-objects”, collages, and numerous books in collaboration with artists (for example, on Tuareg jewelry with Kaïdin), which he signs off under the pen name of “Jaseur Boreal.” One exhibition of his photographs, ''La Sanglinière'', was presented in the Château de Tours in April 2007.

Borer's creative power, as well as the extension of his curiosity can inspire astonishment sometimes, and often admiration. Art historian and art critic Marc Dachy attested it in these words: “The international success of Rimbaud in Abyssinia (American edition of 1991, translation by Rosmarie Waldrop, at William Morrow, New York) makes us forget that we meet in Borer an author in all manners great, one of the best of his generation. His work, often confidential and dispersed in countless journals, cannot yet be overseen in its totality, but his writing, always incandescent and inspired, signifies with erudition and passion, fantasy and humor, profound progress and innovation.”
A travel writer and a signatory of the ''Littérature-Monde ''(World-Literature)'' manifesto of Saint-Malo'', Alain Borer undertakes in 2005 -- at the invitation of Edouard Glissant -- a trip in the South Pacific Ocean (from the Gambier Islands to the archipelago of the Tuamotu). It inspired him to the writing of ''Le ciel & la carte, carnet de voyage dans les mers du Sud à bord de La Boudeuse'' (The Sky and the Map, the Logbook of a Journey in the South Seas on Board of the Boudeuse [not translated in English]). It will receive five literary awards.

It is poetry, which infuses all of Alain Borer's writings. A work of 2007, ''Icare & and I don't'', “a metaphysical vaudeville”, illustrates this rare alliance of poetry and wit, of lightness and depth, whose tone should give life to works of “allegro serioso” – a program about which Roland Barthes said: “With you, the art of living and the art of writing merge.” A 2008 catalogue [G. Tran Din Mahe] listed approximately one thousand publications by one hundred publishers. In addition to this, forty television programs, about a hundred radio shows, hundreds of conferences and public lectures in over a hundred towns, at dozens of universities in as many countries. His work is the subject of hundreds, if not thousands of press articles. A major part of his work appears scattered in prefaces, literary essays in journals, in writings about art and artists in catalogues (Pierre Antoniucci, Barry Flanagan, Vivien Isnard, Henri Maccheroni, Volti ...), in poems in books and magazines, and also in radio shows on France Culture (Germain Nouveau, Agenda Dada, Corrida Dada ...). In 1995, he took part in the club "Phares et Balises" of Regis Debray. He participated in the ''Cahiers de Zanzibar'', then in the group Actéon, “hors de commerce”, with André Velter et Zéno Bianu. Since 2014, Alain Borer is engaged in the defense of the French language, starting with his essay ''De quel amour blessée, réflexions sur la langue française'' (Wounded by Whose Love: Thoughts about the French Language [not translated in English). The book received the Deluen Prize of the Académie Française in 2014, and the François Mauriac Prize in 2016; this polemical work led to invitations to numerous conferences and interventions in diverse media. In 2021, he published a pamphlet against the explosive use of English expressions by French speakers: ''Speak White'' (Editions Gallimard, collection "Tracts"). It was well received by conservative media, like ''Le Figaro,'' or André Bercoff on Radio Sud, as well as by liberal media, like ''Le Monde'' or ''La Croix'' (penned by Laurence Cossé). In his column in Sept Info, the novelist Olivier Weber stated: “A bold publication, learned, savant, salutary now that so many languages are in peril, or disintegrate, which comes to the same.” It was critically reviewed in a counter-pamphlet, ''Les linguistes atterrées.'' Provided by Wikipedia