Philippe Sollers

Philippe Sollers (; born Philippe Joyaux; 28 November 1936) is a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the ''avant garde'' literary journal '' Tel Quel'' (along with writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), which was published by Le Seuil and ran until 1982. Sollers then created the journal '' L'Infini'', published first by Denoel, then by Gallimard with Sollers remaining as sole editor.

Sollers was at the heart of the period of intellectual fervour in the Paris of the 1960s and 1970s. He contributed to the publication of critics and thinkers such Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, and Roland Barthes. Some of them were later described in his novel '' Femmes'' (1983), alongside other figures of French intellectualism active before and after May 1968.

His writings and approach to language were examined and praised by French critic Roland Barthes in his book '' Writer Sollers''.

In 1990, following a televised disagreement between Canadian novelist Denise Bombardier and the French writer Gabriel Matzneff over Matzneff's "recently published memoir, about his sexual conquests of very young women", a few days later, on the TV channel France 3, Sollers referred to Bombardier as "a bitch".

Sollers married Julia Kristeva in 1967.

Biography

Sollers was born as Philippe Joyaux In Talence, France, where his family ran the ''Société Joyaux Frères'', the iron factory ''Recalt'' producing material for kitchens, metal constructions and machines for the aircraft manufacturer SNCASO under the German military administration in occupied France during World War II. His parents were Octave Joyaux and Marcelle Molinié. He moved to Paris in 1955, studied at the Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève of Versailles and at the ESSEC Business School.

Work

Following his first novel, ''A Strange Solitude'' (1958), hailed by François Mauriac and Louis Aragon, Sollers began, with ''The Park'' (1961) the experiments in narrative form that would lead to ''Event'' (''Drame'', 1965) and ''Nombres'' (1968). Jacques Derrida analyzed these novels in his book ''Dissemination''. Sollers then attempted to counter the high seriousness of ''Nombres'' in ''Lois'' (1972), which featured greater stylistic interest through the use of wordplay and a less formal style. The direction taken by ''Lois'' was developed through the heightened rhythmic intensity of non-punctuated texts such as ''Paradis'' (1981).

Sollers's other novels include ''Women'' (1983), ''Portrait du joueur'' (1984), ''Le coeur absolu'' (1986), ''Watteau in Venice'' (1991), ''Studio'' (1997), ''Passion fixe'' (2000), ''L'étoile des amants'' (2002), which have introduced a degree of realism to his fiction, in that they make more explicit use of plot, character and thematic development. They offer the reader a fictional study of the society in which he or she lives by reinterpreting, among other things, the roles of politics, media, sex, religion, and the arts.

Bibliography

Essays

* ''Agent secret'', Mercure de France, 2021
* "Complots" – Gallimard, 2016
* "Portraits de femmes" – Flammarion, 2013
* "Fugues" – Gallimard, 2012
* "Discours Parfait" – Gallimard, 2010
* "Vers le Paradis" – Desclée de Brouwer, 2010 (with DVD)
* "Guerres secrètes" – Carnets nord 2007
* "Fleurs" – Hermann éditions 2006
*''Dictionnaire amoureux de Venise'', 2004
* "Mystérieux Mozart" – Plon 2001
** "Mysterious Mozart" – University of Illinois Press, 2010
* "Éloge de l'Infini" – Gallimard, 2001
* " Francis Ponge" – Seghers éditions, 2001
* "Francesca Woodman" – Scalo Publishers 1998
* "Casanova l'admirable" – Plon 1998
** "Casanova the Irresistible" – University of Illinois Press, 2016
* "La Guerre du Goût" – Gallimard, 1994
** "Liberté du XVIIIème" (Extract from ''La Guerre du Goût'') – Gallimard, 2002
* " Picasso, le héros" – Le cercle d'art 1996
* "Les passions de Francis Bacon" – Gallimard 1996
* "Sade contre l'Être suprême" – Gallimard 1996
* "Improvisations" – Gallimard, 1991
* "De Kooning