Jean-Edern Hallier - Overview, Style, Bibliography

Writer and polemicist, born in Edern, NW France. Son of a general, he said of himself that he was ‘méchant par volupté par plaisir du style’. Of narcissistic temperament, lyrical and médiatique, he had himself excluded from the review Tel Quel in 1963, of which he was co-founder. He published Le Grand Ecrivain in 1967. Politically left-wing after 1968, he was one of the founders of L'Idiot International (1973), his political activities involving him in numerous court cases. He broke with the Goncourt after denouncing literary rigging, and created the anti-Goncourt. L'Honneur perdu de F Mitterand marked his political return.

Jean-Edern Hallier was a French author and dissident.

Overview

Hallier was the son of World War I French hero General André Hallier.

Hallier, returning to France after WW II, first studied at the Pierre-qui-vire convent and then at a Paris lycée and at Oxford.

Very influenced by the 1968 student riots in Paris, he explained his leftist views in the partly autobiographic "La cause des peuples" (1962), plunged into politics full-time and started the first, leftist, version of his newspaper, "L'idiot international".

He died, supposedly of a heart attack, in Deauville in 1997, leaving a son.

Style

Jean-Edern Hallier is widely considered as being the late twentieth century master of French prose; His clear, elegant, fluid and precise classical - even erudite - style, panache and extreme talent, combined with a gift for the descriptive thunderbolt and a penchant for a good fight, have made him into the bête noire of politically correct leftists, whose most charismatic leader he had once been before turning his impressive firepower onto the corruption, cronyism and collaborationist past symbolised by François Mitterrand. The effectiveness of his vengeful attacks (he was said to have been refused a government appointment after the Socialist electoral victory of 1981) was consolidated and increased by the recognized quality of his past - including acclaimed novels - and present writing, as well as by his eye for recognising young talent (for instance Michel Houellebecq), whom he recruited into contributing to his popular and opinionated newspaper l'Idiot International.

The price of taking on the Socialist establishment was, and remains, heavy: Among other verifiable events, Halliers' telephone conversations were continually eavesdropped upon by the Elysée palace, he and any potential publisher were hounded by tax inspectors dispatched to instill the fear of "God" (Mitterrand's nickname) into them, his apartment burned, etc. In effect, he is considered, to a certain extent and through his exceptional - and rankling - talent, as having achieved with Mitterrand what Victor Hugo achieved with Napoléon the Third.

Bibliography

Les aventures d'une jeune fille, Seuil, 1963: Le grand écrivain, Seuil, 1967;