Jean lorrain biography biography com
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Never would I have translated jean Lorrain if I knew then what I know now.
But that’s the beauty of reading a good book. The reader’s relationship is with the book and the story it tells, not with its author.
There’s much inom could write about Jean Lorrain that would turn you away from all his work. But as a translator I choose the writing, not the writer. After I’d read his little collection, Contes pour lire à la chandelle (Stories to Read by Candlelight), certain pieces stayed with me and compelled me to read them again. Before I knew a thing about Lorrain, I was touched bygd the sympathy he expressed for some of the underdogs of his society, like the odd old woman in ‘Madame Gorgibus’ and the trapped beauty in ‘Princess Mandosiane’.
A year or so after finishing my first draft of Stories to Read bygd Candlelight, I read up on him and found little to recommend him as a human. Even a fellow translator said grimly, ‘He wasn
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Jean Lorrain
French poet and novelist
Jean Lorrain | |
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| Born | Paul Alexandre Martin Duval (1855-08-09)9 August 1855 Fécamp, France |
| Died | 30 June 1906(1906-06-30) (aged 50) Fécamp, France |
| Resting place | Cimetière de Fécamp (Fécamp), Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie Region, France |
| Occupation | Poet and novelist |
| Nationality | French |
| Notable works | Monsieur de Phocas Princesses d'ivoire et d'ivresse Histoires de masques |
Jean Lorrain (9 August 1855 in Fécamp, Seine-Maritime – 30 June 1906), born Paul Alexandre Martin Duval, was a Frenchpoet and novelist of the Symbolist school.
Lorrain was a dedicated disciple of dandyism and spent much of his time amongst the fashionable artistic circles in France, particularly in the cafés and bars of Montmartre.[1]
He contributed to the satirical weekly Le Courrier français, and wrote a number of collections of verse, including La forêt bleue (1883) and L'ombre ardente (1897). He is al
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Never would I have translated Jean Lorrain if I knew then what I know now.
But that’s the beauty of reading a good book. The reader’s relationship is with the book and the story it tells, not its author.
There’s much I could write about Jean Lorrain that would turn you away from all his work. But as a translator, I choose the writing, not the writer. After I’d read his little collection, Contes pour lire à la chandelle (Stories to Read by Candlelight), certain pieces stayed with me and compelled me to read them again. Before I knew a thing about Lorrain, I was touched by the sympathy he expressed for some of the underdogs of his society, like the odd old woman in ‘Madame Gorgibus’ and the trapped beauty in ‘Princess Mandosiane’.
A brief bio: Jean Lorrain was born Paul Duval in 1855 and died of decadence in 1906 at the age of 51. He was the only child of a family of wealthy ship-owners. In 1882 he decided to become a writer, disa