Les Éditions de Minuit (, ''Midnight Press'') is a French

publishing house Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

. It was founded in 1941, during the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and is still publishing books today.

History

Les Éditions de Minuit was founded by writer and illustrator

Jean Bruller Jean Marcel Adolphe Bruller (26 February 1902 – 10 June 1991) was a French writer and illustrator who co-founded the publishing company Les Éditions de Minuit with Pierre de Lescure. Born to a Hungarian-Jewish father, he joined the Resistance ...

and writer Pierre de Lescure (1891–1963) in 1941 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

, during the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 193 ...

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 Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his materna ...

, '' Le cahier noir'' ''(The Black Notebook)'' by François Mauriac, and '' Le musée Grévin'' (''The Grévin Museum'') by

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review '' Littérature''. He w ...

. 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

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas fo ...

, François Mauriac, Jean Paulhan, André Chamson,

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...

, and the first unabridged French translation of John Steinbeck's ''

The Moon Is Down ''The Moon Is Down'' is a novel by American writer John Steinbeck. Fashioned for adaptation for the theatre and for which Steinbeck received the Norwegian King Haakon VII Freedom Cross, it was published by Viking Press in March 1942. The story t ...

'' (''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 Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic ex ...

, 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 Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the '' Nouveau Roman'' (new novel) trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and ...

, Claude Simon,

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film '' Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) e ...

and

Robert Pinget Robert Pinget (Geneva, July 19, 1919 – August 25, 1997, Tours) was an avant-garde French writer, born in Switzerland, who wrote several novels and other prose pieces that drew comparison to Beckett and other major Modernist writers. He was al ...

, 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 The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

(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 Laurent Mauvignier (born in 1967, Tours) is a French writer. Biography After studying visual arts at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Laurent Mauvignier decided to become a writer in the 1990s following the advice of Tanguy Viel, a friend a ...

and

Julia Deck Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...

. 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. From its foundation to 2015, the Éditions de Minuit have, through their authors, won two

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 ...

(

and Claude Simon), three

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...

('' The Lover'' by

, ''

I'm Off ''I'm Off'' (french: Je m'en vais) is a 1999 novel by the French writer Jean Echenoz. It is also known as ''I'm Gone''. It received the Prix Goncourt. See also * 1999 in literature This article contains information about the literary events an ...

'' by Jean Echenoz and '' Fields of Glory'' by Jean Rouaud), seven Prix Médicis, one Prix Renaudot and three

Prix Femina The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine ''La Vie heureuse'' (today known as '' Femina''). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works written ...

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

External links

Official website of Les Éditions de Minuit
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Editions de Minuit Book publishing companies of France French resistance publications French brands Publishing companies established in 1941 French companies established in 1941 Underground press in World War II Prix Femina winners