Alain Borer is a French poet, travel writer, novelist, playwright, art critic, essayist, and specialist in the life and works of Arthur Rimbaud.
Early life and education Alain Borer was raised in Luxeuil-les-Bains, France. He received his Middle and High School education at the Institut Florimont in Geneva, Switzerland, where he founded and directed the student journal Le Bateau Ivre.
In 1970, in Nancy, France, during the first year of a preparatory class 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.Gérard Meudal, « Le Rimbaldingue », Libération, March 18, 1983 They would become the subject of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris VII, written under the direction of Julia Kristeva.Raphaël Sorin, « Alain Borer à la poursuite de Rimbaud », Le Monde, November 30, 1984 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.Charles Brabant, « Rimbaud le voleur de feu [archive] », @ alainborer.fr, TF1 INA, Mai 30, 1978 (consulted, December 8, 2019) In the same year, he directed for Radio France the audiotapes collection Rimbaud, read by Laurent Terzieff.Laurent Terzieff and Alain Borer, Arthur Rimbaud, audio cassettes Radio France, 1978
Career Working as a limousine driver in order to pay for his studies, he published Souvenirs d’un chauffeur de maître (Memories of a Master Chauffeur) in Les Temps Modernes, May 1978.
In 1979 he was appointed at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours-Angers-Le Mans as teacher of art theory,« Bulletin de Culture Générale n°12 », BCG Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 2014 where he remained until 2014. He became visiting professor of French Literature at the University of Southern California in 2005.
Borer has been 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).
His name is associated with that of Arthur Rimbaud, to whom he has devoted 30 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.Jacqueline Risset, « La découverte de la "maison Rimbaud" », La Nouvelle Revue Fran-çaise, April 1996 n°519, pp 2-17 He met with the last witnesses of Rimbaud's life, including Emilie Tessier Rimbaud in Vouziers, France; in Ethiopia, he collected oral testimonies.Charles Brabant, Le Voleur de feu, Paris, TF1 INA DVD Doriane films, 1978 He met many famous Rimbaldians—from Etiemble to Bob Dylan« Le suicide de Rimbaud [archive] », @ www.college-de-france.fr, March 3, 2020 (consulted March 15, 2020)—and collaborated with some of them including Allen Ginsberg,« Fous d'Arthur », Le Monde, September 16, 1983, read on line [archive] 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.Gérard Meudal, « Alain Borer, le Rimbaldingue », Libération, September 23, 1983 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.Raphaël Sorin, « Alain Borer à la poursuite de Rimbaud », Le Monde des livres, November 30, 1984 (read on line [archive])Alain Lessard, « Alain Borer, Dans l'exil de Rimbaud », Nuit Blanche, 1986 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.Jean-Claude Guillebaud, « L'heure de fuite », Le Nouvel Observateur, August 26, 2004
During these years, 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.Muriel Steinmetz, « "Ce qui frappe chez Rimbaud, c'est la continuité des ruptures" », L'Humanité, June 26–27–28, 2015, p.19Johny Martinez Cano, « Alain Borer tras Rimbaud [archive] », at literariedad.co, August 14, 2016 (consulted December 8, 2019) 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.”« Rimbaud, l'indépendant à outrance », Le Monde, March 22, 1991 (read online [archive])
Starting in 1991, Borer started exploring 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;« Prix », Le Monde, October 2008 in 1994, an essay on Joseph Beuys (Catalog of the Centre Pompidou).« Joseph Beuys, artiste politique le spectateur l'homme de feutre », Le Monde, June 23, 1994 (read online [archive]) He continues to write poems, in three different registers (in lyrical cosmic lines, in "pataphysical" books, and in what he calls “noems”).« Etats provisoires du poème, X, théâtre et poésie », TNP, Cheyne Editions, décembre 2010
After a first François Coupé, 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.
Art historian and art critic Marc Dachy wrote: "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".Marc Dachy, « Au fil du réseau », Luna Park, n°2, winter 2004-2005
A travel writer and a signatory of the Littérature-Monde (World-Literature) manifesto of Saint-Malo,Amadou Lamine Sall et Lilyan Kesteloot, « Un peu de mémoire, s'il-vous-plaît ! », Le Monde, April 4, 2007 (read online [archive]) 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).« Édouard Glissant, voyageur du tout-monde », Le Monde, 2 juillet 2004 (read online [archive]) 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 received five literary awards: Prix Mac Orlan 2011; Prix Mémoire de la mer 2011; Prix Polynésie 2012; Prix Maurice Genevois de l'Académie française 2012; Joseph Conrad Award.
A major part of his work appears scattered in prefaces, literary essays in journals,Alain Borer, « Le sens perdu de la Marseillaise », Le Point, July 2018 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 ...).Patrick Kechichian, « Le club des poètes », Le Monde, March 15, 1998 (read online [archive]) 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.
From 2014, Borer started getting engaged in the defence of the French language,Jacques Drillon, « Débats, langue : défendre le français, est-ce réac ? », Le Nouvel Ob-servateur, November, 2014 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 of the Aquitaine in 2016; this polemical work led to invitations to numerous conferences and interventions in diverse media.Bernard Pivot, « L'autre défaite d'Azincourt », Le Journal du dimanche (JDD), June 14, 2015Thomas Mahler et Saïd Mahrane, « Borer: "Notre fabrique de mots francophones est en panne" », Le Point, October 2017, p. 1-5
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,« Alain Borer: «Le français subit un grand dérèglement sémantique» [archive] », @ LEFIGARO, May 14, 2021 (consulted June 26, 2023) or André Bercoff on Radio Sud,« Alain Borer rend hommage à la langue française dans "Speak White" chez Gallimard [archive] » (consulted June 26, 2023) as well as by liberal media, like Le Monde« Alain Borer, « “Speak white !” », Le Monde diplomatique, December 2022 - janvier 2023 (read online [archive]) or La Croix (penned by Laurence Cossé).Laurence Cossé, « Parlons français et agissons ! », La Croix, June 30, 2021 (read on-line [archive]) 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.”Olivier Weber, « Le bloc-notes d’Olivier Weber », Sept Info, fall 2022 It was critically reviewed in a counter-pamphlet, Les linguistes atterrées."Le Français va très bien, merci", Les linguistes atterrées, Tracts, 2023
Recognition and awards
Borer has been awarded the following prizes: Prix Bordin de l'Académie française 1985 Prix Kessel 2003 Prix Edouard-Glissant 2005 for the ensemble of his œuvre Prix Apollinaire 2008 Prix Mémoires de la mer 2011 Prix Pierre Mac Orlan 2011 Prix Maurice Genevoix de l'Académie française 2012 Prix Polynésie 2012 Joseph Conrad Award 2012 Prix François Mauriac 2015 Grand prix Deluen de l'Académie française 2015