André Pieyre de Mandiargues & Jean Paulhan, 1947-1968
André Pieyre de MandiarguesJean PaulhanWith nearly three hundred letters, cards and notes exchanged between 1947 and 1968, the correspondence between André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Jean Paulhan reflects the news of the post-war world of letters and the intellectual debates which animate it, mainly around the reappearance of La NRF which Jean Paulhan co-directs from 1953, and to which André Pieyre de Mandiargues will contribute to the section “Time, as it passes”. He published numerous reviews there and gave previews of several of his works.
So many important writers are in fact part of Jean Paulhan's world... Writers whom he himself promoted, thanks to his strategic place within the Nouvelle Revue française, or with whom he maintained deep intellectual affinities. Since their first meeting in 1946, André Pieyre de Mandiargues has been part of this friendly, poetic and artistic circle. And this is the starting point of their epistolary conversation.
Throughout these erudite and moving letters, the personality of the two interlocutors is revealed in all the flavor of its subtlety and irony. Both share in fact the same taste for the unusual, the incongruities, the pleasure of seeing... André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Jean Paulhan – Mandiargues calls the latter the “playboy of modern art” – love artists and in particular painters. Their writing is often at the service of the image and its creators and whose names – Braque, Dubuffet, de Pisis – appear in many letters. So much complicity, beyond the generational difference, gives rise to an affection and an intimacy which give this correspondence a surprising warmth and, for today's reader, extremely touching.
Resources
J. Paulhan, A. Pieyre de Mandiargues, Correspondance, Fabula
Publisher : Gallimard