Ren Daumal

Born 16 March 1908

Boulzicourt, Ardennes,
France
Died 21 May 1944 (aged 36)
Paris, France
Nationality French
Occupation Para-surrealist writer, poet
Known for Mount Analogue (1952)
Signature
Ren Daumal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ren Daumal (French: [domal]; 16 March
1908 21 May 1944) was a French
spiritual para-surrealist writer and poet,
best known for his posthumously
published novel Mount Analogue (1952)
as well as for being an early, outspoken
practitioner of 'pataphysics.
Contents
1 Biography
2 Legacy
3 Bibliography
3.1 Works by Ren Daumal in
English translation
3.2 Works in English on Ren
Daumal
4 External links
Biography
He was born in Boulzicourt, Ardennes, France. In his late teens his avant-garde
poetry was published in France's leading journals, and in his early twenties,
although courted by Andr Breton co-founded, as a counter to Surrealism and
Dada, a literary journal, "Le Grand Jeu" with three friends, collectively known as
the Simplists, including poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte . He is best-known in the
English-speaking world for two novels: A Night of Serious Drinking, and the
allegorical novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic
Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, both based upon his friendship
with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of G. I. Gurdjie.
Daumal was self-taught in the Sanskrit language and translated some of the
Tripitaka Buddhist canon into the French language, as well as translating the
literature of the Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki into French.
He married Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after
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House in Boulzicourt,
Ardennes, where Daumal was
born
Close of the plaque,
outside the house
Daumal's death, she married the landscape
architect Russell Page.
Daumal's sudden and premature death from
tuberculosis on 21 May 1944 in Paris may have
been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs
and psychoactive chemicals, including carbon
tetrachloride. He died leaving his novel Mount
Analogue unnished, having worked on it until the
day of his death.
Legacy
The motion picture The Holy Mountain by
Alejandro Jodorowsky is based largely on Daumal's
Mount Analogue.
Bibliography
Works by Ren Daumal in English
translation
Le Contre-Ciel (Le contre-ciel), Woodstock, New
York: Overlook Press, 2005.
A Fundamental Experiment, New York / Madras:
Hanuman Books, 1987; rst published: Ren Daumal,
"A Fundamental Experiment", X magazine, Vol. I, No.
I (November 1959).
The Lie of the Truth and Other Parables from the Way of Liberation, New
York / Madras: Hanuman Books, 1989.
Mount Analogue (Le mont analogue), Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press,
2004.
Mugle and the Silk (Mugle; La soie), New York, Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.
A Night of Serious Drinking (La grande beuverie), Woodstock, New York:
Overlook Press, 2003.
Pataphysical Essays, Cambridge: Wakeeld Press, 2012.
The Powers of the Word (1927-1943) (Les pouvoirs de la parole), San
Francisco: City Lights, 1991.
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'Rasa or Knowledge of the Self' Essays On Indian Aesthetics and Selected
Sanskrit Studies. New York: New Directions, 1982.* ed. Claudio Rugaori,
transl. Louise Landes Levi, Repr. Kathamndu, Nepal, Shivastan, 2002 & 2006
(each edition 333 copies).
You've Always Been Wrong (Tu t'es toujours tromp), Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1995.
Ren Daumal, Letters on the Search for Awakening, 1930 - 1944, Toronto:
Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2010. transl. Gabriela Ansari and Roger Lipsey,
with an introduction by Roger Lipsey.
Works in English on Ren Daumal
Phil Powrie, Ren Daumal and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte: A bibliography,
London: Grant & Cutler, 1988.
Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt, Ren Daumal: The Life and Work of a Mystic
Guide (http://books.google.co.in/books?id=HIKWlqTKGgcC&
printsec=frontcover&dq=Ren%C3%A9+Daumal&hl=en&
sa=X&ei=Vh4SUaqjNMnprAf_5YCwCA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&
q=Ren%C3%A9%20Daumal&f=false), New York: Suny Press, 1999.
External links
Ren Daumal Works (http://www.gurdjie.org/daumal.htm) Gurdjei
International Review
Holy War (http://www.gurdjie.org/daumal1.htm)
Skin of Light and Last Letter to his Wife (http://www.poemhunter.com/rene-
daumal/)
Poetry Black Poetry White (http://www.deaddrunkdublin.com/poems
/rene_daumal/poetry_black_poetry_white.html)
Works by Ren Daumal (public domain in Canada)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ren_Daumal&
oldid=609350256"
Categories: 1908 births 1944 deaths People from Ardennes
Deaths from tuberculosis French novelists Surrealist writers
Infectious disease deaths in France French poets Pataphysicians
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20th-century writers French translators Translators to French
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