René Ernest Joseph Eugène Étiemble (26 January 1909 in

Mayenne Mayenne ( ) is a landlocked department in northwest France named after the river Mayenne. Mayenne is part of the administrative region of Pays de la Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Manche, Orne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, and Il ...

– 7 January 2002 in Vigny) was a French

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, and promoter of

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and

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n cultures. Known commonly by his family name alone, Etiemble held the coveted Chair of Comparative Literature, in 1955, at the Institute of General and Comparative Literature in the pre-1968 Sorbonne University and continued in his post as a tenured Professor (and after retirement in September 1978 as an Honorary Professor) at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University from 1956 to 1978. His doctoral dissertation on the Myth of Rimbaud and his many interpreters world-wide won him fame in 1952. However, one critic thinks Étiemble's derisive tone and some ill-founded conjectures about Rimbaud's later life undermine the book's credibility today. During World War II, he taught at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and was attached to the Office of War Information in New York in 1943. After the War, he taught French literature at the University of Alexandria, from 1944 to 1948, and thereafter at the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier () is a public university, public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous opera ...

, France. He was the author of some sixty works (and edited the celebrated UNESCO Oriental Series for Gallimard publishers) Among his more popular works: ''Connaissez-vous la Chine?'' (''Do you know China?''), Gallimard 1964, and ''Quarante ans de mon maoïsme'' (1934-1974) (''Forty years of my Maoism'') Gallimard 1976. He enjoyed a formidable reputation as a literary critic and daring polemicist, recognition for which came late in the guise of an official prize from the French Academy. He also published three novels, one of which ''Blason d'un corps''. aris: Editions Gallimard, 1961is still remembered and read avidly. He is also remembered for his translations of Lawrence of Arabia's works into French. In his youth, a militant communist and anti-fascist, he became interested in the Chinese communist movement. Together with the Chinese poet Dai Wangshu 戴望舒 (1905-1950) he produced a number of translations of the works of left-wing Chinese writers and published these in a special issue of ''Commune'' (February 1934), organ of the French anti-fascist writers' and artists' association ( Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires). In his later years, he was a vehement defender of human rights and his book detailing and denouncing the increasing anglicization of the French language, ''Parlez-vous franglais?'' (''Do you speak Franglais?''),Gallimard, (1964, 1991) attracted a wide readership. In 1988, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for comparative literature.

References

Who's Who in France The pronoun ''who'', in English, is an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun's subjective form; its inflected forms are the objective ''whom'' and the possessive ...

br>on line (free). Retrieved on 16 February 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Etiemble, Rene 1909 births People from Mayenne 2002 deaths 20th-century French writers French literary theorists Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni French Maoists University of Chicago faculty Academic staff of the University of Paris French sinologists 20th-century French linguists