Jean-Paul Clébert (23 February 1926 – 21 September 2011) was a French writer.

Biography

Before completing his studies in a Jesuit college, Jean-Paul Clébert left to join the French Resistance in 1943 at the age of 16. After the liberation, he spent six months in Asia and then returned to France. He described his unusual life:

On returning he lived for 3 or 4 years as a clochard amongst the many homeless people in the underground world of Paris. This experience inspired his classic study of the underworld of Paris Paris insolite/Unknown Paris (1952), which he dedicated to his companions Robert Giraud and photographer Robert Doisneau. The book was championed by the remaining Surrealists, and the emerging Situationists based their theory of the dérive on Clébert's principles, using his book as a literal guide to the underside of the city.see Lucy Sante's introduction to the 2016 translation of Paris Insulate An illustrated edition with photos of Patrice Molinard (who debuted as a stills photographer on Georges Franju's documentary le Sang des bêtes) and layout by Massin was published in 1954. On the occasion of the book's reissue by Attila in 2009 he said:

Clébert’s friends Jacques Yonnet and Robert Giraud were inspired to write their own tales of the vagabond life on the streets of Paris; Yonnet’s Rue des Maléfices (1954), his sole novel (originally Enchantements sur Paris, English translation Paris Noir), and Giraud’s Le Vin des rues (1955). The three frequented Chez Fraysse on Rue de Seine in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with Doisneau, not far from Clébert’s other haunt Chez Moineau, the dirt-cheap refuge of bohemian youths and of Guy Debord, Michele Bernstein, Gil J. Wolman, Ivan Chtcheglov and the other members of the Lettrist International, and which was the subject of Ed van der Elsken’s photo-romain Love on the Left Bank (1956). Thus did Clébert attend both the last Surrealist meeting and some of the first gatherings of the Situationists.

For two years he was a reporter in Asia for Paris Match and France Soir.

Provence and later life Clébert retreated from urban life in 1956 to the mountainous Luberon region of Provence, in which he discovered abandoned stone villages, and took up residence there without running water or electricity, before moving in 1968 to Oppède-le-Vieux. The village had been a refuge for artists during the war, where Alexey Brodovitch owned an old mill occupied by his brother, and where Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, widow of the aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was still resident. He spent the rest of his life there, dying on September 20, 2011.

He wrote thirty-three books and many were dedicated to the history and legends of his adopted Provence,Bachimon, P., & Arcuset, L. (1997). Textualité et résidentialité dans l’invention du Luberon. the most influential of these being Les Tziganes (1962), a pioneering sociological study of Gypsies,Olive, J. L. (2004). Nomination et dé-nomination de l'autre: Des usages ethnonymiques à l'épistémologie discursive en milieu gitan. Esprit critique, 6(01), 1705-1045.Gropper, R. C. (1970). ETHNOLOGY: The Gypsies. Jean‐Paul Clébert. Charles Duff, trans. American Anthropologist, 72(3), 640-641. one of the finest studies of the subject at the time based on both archival research and personal experienceGrande, F. (1999). El flamenco y los gitanos españoles. I Tchatchipen, 28, 33-36. (although it has also seen criticism in recent yearsThe Myth of Gypsy Nationalism by Werner Cohn, Nationalities Papers, vol. XXI, no. 2, fall 1993; Copyright Werner Cohn, 1993, http://www.wernercohn.com/Gypsymyth.htmlActon, T. (2007). Reviews: Lou Charnon-Deutsch, The Spanish Gypsy: The History of a European Obsession, Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA, 2004; 280 pp., 31 illus.; 0271023597, $42.95 (hbk). European History Quarterly, 37(3), 467-468.). The book was translated into English by Charles Duff in 1969. It was followed by Rêver de Provence – Côte d'Azur (1967), Guide de la Provence mystérieuse (1992) and a three volumes of the series Provence antique (vol. 1 in 1966, vol. 2 in 1970 and vol. 3 in 1992). He was awarded the Prix littéraire de Provence in 1988.

He published the novels L'Ermite in 1984, L'Alchimiste du Roi-Soleil in 1994 and L'Esprit des hauts lieux, in 2000. In 1996 he published Dictionnaire du Surréalisme.Massipe, A. (2010). Je rêve donc je fais la révolution. L’écriture surréaliste au service de la révolution. Les chantiers de la création. Revue pluridisciplinaire en Lettres, Langues, Arts et Civilisations, (3).

Bibliography

1952 : , co-authored with Patrice Molinard (photographs), Reissued by Attila in 2009 1953 : 1955 : 1956 : 1958 : , co-author: Georges Glasberg, Pub. Éditions Grasset 1962 : , illustrated by 64 photographs, 18 drawings and 2 maps 1966 : , 1 : des origines a la conquête romaine 1967 : 1968 : , co-author Aimé Michel, Encyclopédieplanéte 1970 : 1981 : 1984 : 1986 : 1986 : 1988 : 1992 : 1992 : 1992 : 1993 : 1994 : 1995 : 1996 : 1996 : 1996 : 1998 : 1998 : 1999 : 2000 : genre=roman 2001 : co-author Josiane Aoun and Béatrice Tollu, Aubanel : collection Nature Cote Sud 2003 : 2004 : 2006 : 2007 :

Works in translation

1956 : The Paris I Love Text by Jean-Paul Clebert with photography by Patrice Molinard, with an introduction by Marcel Ayme, Tudor Publishing Company, New York 1958 : The Blockhouse, Avon Books 1963 : The Gypsies, Vista Books translated by Charles Duff 1997 : Der Untergang der Welt, Pub. Lübbe 2016 : Paris Vagabond (Paris insolite) Donald Nicholson-Smith (translator), with photography by Patrice Molinard, New York Review Books. .

Works in adaptation In 1973, Clébert's novel The Blockhouse was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Clive Rees, starring Peter Sellers and Charles Aznavour.

Notes

External links La mort de Jean-Paul Clébert, By Gregory Leménager, BibliObs http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/actualites/20110921.OBS0833/la-mort-de-jean-paul-clebert.html Interview with Jean-Paul Clébert by Olivier Bailly, BibliObs «Les clochards n'étaient pas des exclus comme aujourd'hui» 31 October 2009 https://web.archive.org/web/20130321032804/http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/documents/20091031.BIB4327/les-clochards-n-039-etaient-pas-des-exclus-comme-aujourd-039-hui.html Le Vagabond de Paris, BibliObs, http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/documents/20091030.BIB4325/le-vagabond-de-paris.html