Les Éditions de Minuit
Founded | 1941 |
---|---|
Founder | Jean Bruller and Pierre de Lescure |
Country of origin | France |
Headquarters location | Paris |
Publication types | Books |
Official website | www |
Les Éditions de Minuit (French: [lez‿edisjɔ̃ də minɥi], Midnight Press) is a French publishing house. It was founded in 1941, during the French Resistance of World War II, and is still publishing books today.[as of?]
History
Les Éditions de Minuit was founded by writer and illustrator Jean Bruller and writer Pierre de Lescure (1891–1963) in 1941 in Paris, during the German occupation of northern France (by November 1942, German forces occupied all of France). At the time, the media and all forms of publishing were controlled and censored by the Nazi occupiers. Les Éditions de Minuit was started to circumvent the censorship. It was an underground publisher until the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944.
Le Silence de la mer (The Silence of the Sea) (1942) by co-founder Bruller (who wrote under the pseudonym Vercors) was the first book published. Distribution, as with other Resistance texts, was based on being passed from person to person.
Le Silence de la mer was followed in 1943 by Chroniques interdites (banned newspaper columns, various authors), L'Honneur des poètes (The Honour of poets) poetry collected by Paul Éluard, Le cahier noir (The Black Notebook) by François Mauriac, and Le musée Grévin (The Grévin Museum) by Louis Aragon.
A small group of printers joined Bruller and de Lescure, and together they risked imprisonment and death to publish works by some of France's greatest authors (who wrote under pseudonyms). The authors included Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Jean Paulhan, André Chamson, André Gide, and the first unabridged French translation of John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down (Nuits noires).
After the war, when Les Éditions de Minuit was able to operate openly, it continued to publish books but struggled in the early postwar years to become financially stable. The publishing house was directed by Jérôme Lindon from 1947 until his death in 2001. His daughter, Irène Lindon, succeeded him.
In the 1950s, the company began to be more successful. Lindon was the first to publish several novels by Samuel Beckett, who wrote in French as well as English, and was resident in France at the time. Other authors published include Monique Wittig, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras and Robert Pinget, who constituted the backbone of the Nouveau roman literary movement. It also published Henri Alleg's La Question (1958) on the use of torture by the French Army during the Algerian War (1954–62). The book was censored.
From the late 1970s to the mid-80s, Lindon and the Éditions de Minuit promoted several young French authors such as Jean Echenoz, soon joined by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (from Belgium), Jean Rouaud, Marie NDiaye, Patrick Deville, Éric Chevillard, and lately by Laurent Mauvignier and Julia Deck. These have been classified under the tag of "Style Minuit", characterized by a certain writing renewal (partially influenced by the Nouveau Roman), based on minimalist formalism mixed to an elaborated style.[1][2][3]
From its foundation to 2015, the Éditions de Minuit have, through their authors, won two Nobel Prize in Literature (Samuel Beckett and Claude Simon), three Prix Goncourt (The Lover by Marguerite Duras, I'm Off by Jean Echenoz and Fields of Glory by Jean Rouaud), seven Prix Médicis, one Prix Renaudot and three Prix Femina.[3]
21st century
The style of the front covers of Les Éditions de Minuit books is nearly as spare as the wartime edition of Le Silence de la mer. The only decoration is a blue border and the symbol of Les Éditions de Minuit: a star and the letter "m".
Book series
- Arguments
- Critique
- Documents
- Philosophie
- Propositions
- Le Sens commun
References
- ^ Bertrand, Michel; Germoni, Karine; Jauer, Annick (2014). Existe-t-il un style Minuit ?. Université de Provence. p. 274. ISBN 978-2853999397.
- ^ Voisset-Veysseyre, Cécile (6 January 2015). "Peut-on parler d'un style Minuit?". Slate.fr (in French). Retrieved 18 September 2018.
- ^ a b Assouline, Pierre (27 October 2014). "Y a-t-il vraiment un " style Minuit " ?". La République des livres. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
External links
- Official website of Les Éditions de Minuit (in French)
- v
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- 1904 Myriam Harry
- 1905 Romain Rolland
- 1906 André Corthis
- 1907 Colette Yver
- 1908 Édouard Estaunié
- 1909 Edmond Jaloux
- 1910 Marguerite Audoux
- 1911 Louis de Robert
- 1912 Jacques Morel
- 1913 Camille Marbo
- 1914
- 1915
- 1916
- 1917 Maurice Larrouy
- 1918 Henri Bachelin
- 1919 Roland Dorgelès
- 1920 Edmond Gojon
- 1921 Raymond Escholier
- 1922 Jacques de Lacretelle
- 1923 Jeanne Galzy
- 1924 Charles Derennes
- 1925 Joseph Delteil
- 1926 Charles Silvestre
- 1927 Marie Le Franc
- 1928 Dominique Dunois
- 1929 Georges Bernanos
- 1930 Marc Chadourne
- 1931 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 1932 Ramon Fernandez [fr]
- 1933 Geneviève Fauconnier
- 1934 Robert Francis
- 1935 Claude Silve
- 1936 Louise Hervieu
- 1937 Raymonde Vincent
- 1938 Félix de Chazournes
- 1939 Paul Vialar
- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944 Éditions de Minuit (publisher)
- 1945 Anne-Marie Monnet
- 1946 Michel Robida
- 1947 Gabrielle Roy
- 1948 Emmanuel Roblès
- 1949 Maria Le Hardouin
- 1950 Serge Groussard
- 1951 Anne de Tourville
- 1952 Dominique Rolin
- 1953 Zoé Oldenbourg
- 1954 Gabriel Veraldi
- 1955 André Dhôtel
- 1956 François-Régis Bastide
- 1957 Christian Mégret
- 1958 Françoise Mallet-Joris
- 1959 Bernard Privat
- 1960 Louise Bellocq
- 1961 Henri Thomas
- 1962 Yves Berger
- 1963 Roger Vrigny
- 1964 Jean Blanzat
- 1965 Robert Pinget
- 1966 Irène Monesi
- 1967 Claire Etcherelli
- 1968 Marguerite Yourcenar
- 1969 Jorge Semprún
- 1970 François Nourissier
- 1971 Angelo Rinaldi
- 1972 Roger Grenier
- 1973 Michel Dard
- 1974 René-Victor Pilhes
- 1975 Claude Faraggi
- 1976 Marie-Louise Haumont
- 1977 Régis Debray
- 1978 François Sonkin
- 1979 Pierre Moinot
- 1980 Jocelyne François
- 1981 Catherine Hermary-Vieille
- 1982 Anne Hébert
- 1983 Florence Delay
- 1984 Bertrand Visage
- 1985 Hector Bianciotti
- 1986 René Belletto
- 1987 Alain Absire
- 1988 Alexandre Jardin
- 1989 Sylvie Germain
- 1990 Pierrette Fleutiaux
- 1991 Paula Jacques
- 1992 Anne-Marie Garat
- 1993 Marc Lambron
- 1994 Olivier Rolin
- 1995 Emmanuel Carrère
- 1996 Geneviève Brisac
- 1997 Dominique Noguez
- 1998 François Cheng
- 1999 Maryline Desbiolles
- 2000 Camille Laurens
- 2001 Marie NDiaye
- 2002 Chantal Thomas
- 2003 Dai Sijie
- 2004 Jean-Paul Dubois
- 2005 Régis Jauffret
- 2006 Nancy Huston
- 2007 Éric Fottorino
- 2007 Gwenaëlle Aubry
- 2008 Jean-Louis Fournier
- 2010 Patrick Lapeyre
- 2011 Simon Liberati
- 2012 Patrick Deville
- 2013 Léonora Miano
- 2014 Yanick Lahens
- 2015 Christophe Boltanski
- 2016 Marcus Malte
- 2017 Philippe Jaenada
- 2018 Philippe Lançon
- 2019 Sylvain Prudhomme
- 2020 Serge Joncour
- 2021 Clara Dupont-Monod
- 2022 Claudie Hunzinger [fr]