Georges Henein (1914–1973) was an Egyptian poet and author. He was a founding member of the Cairo-based, surrealist
Art and Liberty Group which brought together artists, writers and various intellectuals of different backgrounds and national origins under the shared cause of
anti-fascist activism. The group was active from 1938 up until the late 1940s.
Early life and education
Born in Cairo in 1914, Henien was the son of Sadek Henein Pacha, a coptic diplomat father and Mary Zanelli, an Italian-Egyptian mother. Henein spent his childhood between Cairo, Madrid, Rome and Paris where he would eventually study at the Lycée Pasteur de Neuily and the Sorbonne. Because of his education abroad, he was fluent in Arabic, Italian, Greek, English and French. While in France, Henein met
André Breton and
Henri Calet
Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry.
People with this given name
; French noblemen
:'' See the 'List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.''
* Henri I de Montm ...
. He established a friendship with Breton and began a correspondence with him in which Henein "grappled with questions of how to fuse revolutionary Marxism with Surrealism."
Before graduating from the Sorbonne, Henein joined ''Les Essayistes'' ("The Attempters"), a Francophone literary club, and took part in its monthly publication ''Un Effort.'' In 1933 he became a columnist in Egyptian newspapers, notable for his enlightening or nasty tone.
Writing career
Back from Paris in the 1930s, he spread surrealism in Cairo by founding the group
Art et Liberté
Groupe Art et Liberté ( ar, جماعة الفن والحرية; English: Art and Liberty Group, Art and Freedom Group) was an Egyptian artistic and political movement active from 1938 to 1948, about the time of the Second World War. Among th ...
(
Albert Cossery was a member), and then by creating the journal (and publishing house) ''La Part du Sable'' with poet
Edmond Jabès and painter
Ramsès Younane. In 1938, Georges met surrealist poet,
Ikbal El-Alailly, also known as Paula, who he would marry in 1954. Together, along with several other surrealists from Art and Liberty, they worked on a surrealist publication of writings and drawings titled ''La séance continue.'' When he died, she published several of his works in French such as ''Notes on a Useless Country, The Gloomiest Relation,'' and the ''Savage Spirit.''
In 1939 he cofounded a weekly, ''
Don Quichotte
''Don Quichotte'' (''Don Quixote'') is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
Massenet's ''comédie-héroïque'', like many dramatiz ...
'', together with Henri Curiel and
Raoul Curiel
Raoul Curiel (born 23 June 1913, Cairo, Egypt; d. 23 February 2000 Paris, France) was a French archaeologist, egyptologist and orientalist.
Early life and education
Curiel was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Cairo, the son of Daniel ...
.
Henein participated in the journal ''Troisième Convoi'' (1945–1951), created by his friend Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange and Jean Maquet.
In 1938, he published his first collection of poems titled ''Absurdity of Being'' with illustrations by fellow Art and Liberty member
Kamel el-Telmissany. In 1944-45, he published ''For a Polluted Consciousness, Who Are You, Mr. Aragon'' and ''Position of Terror.'' His later titles include ''The Incompatible, Two Images, Allusion to Kafka,'' and ''The Forbidden.'' In 1967, he wrote the introduction for ''An Anthology of Contemporary Arabic Literature'' and in 1969 he worked as a collaborator in ''The Small Political Encyclopedia.''
In Paris, he co-directed the surrealist liaison office “Cause”, but in 1948, he withdrew from the Surrealist movement, while still publishing his poems in Phases journal. In the 1960s, he got involved in journalism working as editor-in-chief and head of the reporting department for the news magazines ''
Jeune Afrique'' and ''
L’Express''.
While forced to exile in France by the Egyptian government in 1962 – due to his anti-fascist ideas, Henein worked as a journalist. Writing on
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( , ) was a French novelist, polemicist and physician. His first novel ''Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the '' Pr ...
,
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
or
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy (; born 17 January 1944) is a French former singer and songwriter. Mainly known for singing melancholic sentimental ballads, Hardy has been an important figure in French pop music since her debut, spanning a career o ...
, Henein stood out for his free, alert and unalterable tone. He used to work with an urgency allowing him to be scandalized or to be moved in the same breath, with a rage sometimes tinged with melancholy, sometimes with perfidy. An example: “
Raymond Roussel
Raymond Roussel (; 20 January 1877 – 14 July 1933) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French litera ...
snubbed
Marcel Proust, and, for that alone, he deserves our sympathy.” (Guliver, Paris, 1973)
References
Bibliography
* Déraisons d'être, José Corti, Paris, 1938
* Un temps de petite fille, Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1947
* L'Incompatible, La Part du sable, Paris, 1949
*Le Seuil interdit, Mercure de France, Paris, 1956
*Le Signe le plus obscur, Présence, Paris, 1977
*La Force de saluer, La Différence, Paris, 1978
* L'Esprit frappeur: carnets 1940–1973, Encre, 1980
Œuvres. Poésies, récits, essais et articles forewords by Yves Bonnefoy and Berto Fahri, Denoël, Paris, 2006
External links
Egyptian Surrealism The Prestige of Terror - translated from the french by Tom RidgwayLong Live Degenerate Art manifestoRamsès Younan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henein, Georges
1914 births
1973 deaths
20th-century Egyptian writers
Anti-fascists
Egyptian poets
Egyptian expatriates in France