French writer, poet, publisher and cultural ambassador
Paul Fournel (born 20 May 1947 in Saint-Étienne) is a French writer, poet, publisher, and cultural ambassador. He was educated at the École normale supérieure of Saint-Cloud (1968–1972). Fournel wrote his master's thesis on Raymond Queneau and published the first book-length study of the Oulipo, Clefs pour la littérature potentielle ("Keys to potential literature"). He joined the Oulipo, first as "slave," then (in 1972) as a full member, and he currently serves both as the Provisionally Definitive Secretary and the President of that group. He is also a regent of the College of 'Pataphysics.
Fournel has worked at various publishing houses, notably Hachette, Honoré Champion, Ramsay, and Seghers. From 1996 to 2000 he was director of the Alliance Française in San Francisco, and from 2000 to 2003 he was the French cultural attaché in Cairo. He has been France's cultural attaché in London.
Oulipo is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior and Jean Lescure, and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.
Raymond Queneau was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo, notable for his wit and cynical humour.
Jules Régis Debray is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society, and for associating with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and advancing Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile in the early 1970s. He returned to France in 1973 and later held various official posts in the French government.
Hervé Le Tellier is a French writer and linguist, and a member of the international literary group Oulipo. He is its fourth president. Other notable members have included Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Jacques Roubaud, Jean Lescure and Harry Mathews. He won the 2020 Prix Goncourt for The Anomaly.
Jacques Jouet is a French writer and has been a participating member of the Oulipo literary project since 1983.
Gabriel Cattand was a French actor. He appeared in 108 films and television shows between 1950 and 1997. He starred in the 1969 film Klann – grand guignol, which was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.
Le Temps des cerises is a song written in France in 1866, with words by Jean-Baptiste Clément and music by Antoine Renard, extremely famous in French-speaking countries. The song was later strongly associated with the Paris Commune, during which verses were added to the song, thus becoming a revolutionary song. The "Time of Cherries" is a metaphor regarding what life will be like when a revolution will have changed social and economic conditions. It is believed to be dedicated by the writer to a nurse who fought in the semaine sanglante when French government troops overthrew the commune.
Colette Renard, born Colette Lucie Raget, was a French actress and singer. Renard is closely associated with the titular character from the musical Irma La Douce, a role she played for over a decade.
Joseph Malègue, was a French catholic novelist, principally author of Augustin ou le Maître est là (1933) and Pierres noires. Les classes moyennes du Salut. He was also a theologian and published some theological surveys, as Pénombres about Faith and against Fideism. His first novel is, following the French historian of spirituality Émile Goichot, the most accurately linked to Modernism. Pope Francis quoted in several circumstances, among them in El Jesuita this Malègue's view about Incarnation : ‘’ It is not Christ who is incomprehensible for me if He is God, it is God who is strange for me if He is not Christ.‘’
Jacques Legras was a French actor.
Marcel Bénabou is a French writer and historian.
Gilbert Lascault was a French novelist, essayist, and art critic.
Jacques Bens was a French writer and poet.
La Bibliothèque oulipienne is a collection that hosts the works of the individual and collective members of the Oulipo. The short texts that compose them form a fabric of playful literary creations.
Hubert Nyssen was a Belgian-French writer, publisher and founder of the Éditions Actes Sud.
"Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume" is a French language pangram, that is, a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet. It is also an alexandrine.
Robert Castel was a French actor.
Philippe Brizard was a French actor.
Ouissem Belgacem is a French former high-performance athlete and writer of Tunisian origin. He played football for Toulouse FC from the ages of 13 to 18 years old. He published his first autobiographical novel, Adieu ma honte, in 2021. Belgacem often raises awareness about homophobia in the field of football, which he had to leave to live his sexuality freely.
The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise is a book by French writer Georges Perec (1936–1982). In 2011, publishing house Verso Books published a translation into English by David Bellos.
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