Jean Malaquais was born Wladimir Malacki into a non-practicing Jewish family, in Warsaw, Poland, on April 11, 1908. His intellectual father taught Classics; his mother had been active in the Bund, a Jewish socialist organization. All of his family was exterminated during World War II.
Young Malacki left Poland in 1926 and, after extensive traveling, notably in the Middle
East, ended up in France, the
By 1935, he had settled in Paris, working nights unloading crates in Les Halles central market, and spending his days in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, perfecting his French and imbibing culture, especially literature. After reading a statement in which André Gide speculated that the experience of poverty might have enriched his writing, Malacki addressed an angry letter to the famous author, who responded by encouraging him to write and included a 100 francs postal order. Irate and humiliated, Malacki returned the postal order torn into pieces. The two men finally met and there developed between them a friendship which endured until Gide’s death in 1951. Gide exerted a profound literary influence on his friend in the early days of their relationship and, later on, actually helped save his life.
In 1938, Malacki completed a draft of the novel
After the war broke out, Malaquais, albeit stateless, was conscripted into the French army and captured by the Nazis. He managed to escape to Marseilles and, in 1943, thanks to the efforts of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee, he was able to flee occupied France. Gide had interceded with Consul Gilberto Bosques to secure him a visa to Mexico, where he stayed until 1945. While there, he had two books published by a French firm established in New York:
Malaquais was granted a United States visa in 1946 and became an American citizen in 1952. Nonetheless, he never ceased to consider himself an alien, wherever he was living. The novel
In 1949, Malaquais met Norman Mailer, whose novel
Malaquais spent the next decades between France, Australia, and the United States, witing and teaching French literature. In 1960, at the Sorbonne, he defended a dissertation on Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard, which led to the publication, in 1971, of
Malaquais spent his last years in Switzerland, where his wife held a post at the Office of the United Nations in Geneva. He died there on December 22, 1998.
In addition to material found within the Jean Malaquais Papers, the following sources were used:
Kirkup, James.
La Société Jean Malaquais. Planète Malaquais. http://malaquais.org (accessed 8 November 2011).
Mailer, Norman.
The Jean Malaquais Papers consist of manuscript drafts, correspondence, notes, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, journals, and bound volumes belonging to the French writer and translator, Jean Malaquais. The papers are organized into three series: I. Works, 1936-2001, undated; II. Correspondence, 1917-2010, undated; and III. Personal and Professional Files, 1939-2009, undated.
Series I. Works includes drafts of Malaquais' stories, novels, essays, poems, play scripts, and other writings. Malaquais wrote in both French and English and occasionally in Spanish. Works are arranged in alphabetical order by title, with shorter works combined into folders within specific alphabetical ranges. Because publication information is difficult to verify for many of the French and Spanish essays and shorter works, the publication information provided reflects what is believed to be the date of first publication.
Of particular interest is a heavily annotated edition of
Also noteworthy is a carbon typescript draft of the preface to
Series II. Correspondence makes up a considerable segment of the papers and it is arranged into two subseries: A. Personal and B. Professional. Correspondents include Nelson Algren, James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Charles Boyer, Michael Fraenkel, Varian Fry, André Gide, Norman Mailer, Granger Ryan, Leon Trotsky, and other American, French, and Australian writers, artists, intellectuals, publishers, translators, and admirers. Most letters are either in French or English, but some are in Spanish. Carbon copies of Malaquais' outgoing letters are found throughout the correspondence.
Subseries A. Personal correspondence contains a large volume of letters with French writer André Gide. Contents include original handwritten letters from Gide to Malaquais and Malaquais' typed transcriptions of these letters. In addition, there are a few of Malaquais' outgoing typed carbon copies and hand-transcribed copies of Malaquais' letters housed with Gide's papers at Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. This collection of letters was published in France as
Of significant importance is personal correspondence between Malaquais and American writer, Norman Mailer from 1948 to 1992. Interfiled within these original letters are Malaquais' letters photocopied from the Ransom Center's Norman Mailer Papers. Scattered among these letters are several letters from Mailer's first wife, Beatrice (Bea), and in later years from his sixth wife, Norris. This collection of letters was published in France as
Related to Mailer is a large volume of lengthy letters from convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott. Abbott contacted Mailer in 1977 upon learning that Mailer was writing about convicted murderer Gary Gilmore for his book,
Also of interest are letters from Eiichi Yamanishi, Japanese translator of Mailer's
Subseries B. Professional correspondence contains letters from French, American, English, Mexican, and other publishers; agents including Madeline B., Franz J. Horch, Scott Meredith, and Russell & Volkening; and other translators, editors, and admirers. Contracts, royalty statements, and other attachments are frequently interfiled with this correspondence, such as the contract between Mailer and Malaquais for his French translation of
Also included is a file of letters associated with Malaquais numerous university appointments and files of letters associated with various works. In 1967 to 1968, Malaquais and his wife, Elisabeth, collaborated on an English translation of an anthology of contemporary French literature that was never published. A file includes letters to many notable writers, including Samuel Beckett, in order to secure rights to republish their work.
Series III. Personal and Professional Papers contains documents related to Malaquais' life as a writer. Biographical papers, contracts, film project material, journals, manuscripts written by other authors, notes and research material, photographs, scrapbooks, and material related to his university appointments are found in this series.
Of primary interest is material related to writer Norman Mailer. This only item associated with Malaquais' translation of Mailer's
In addition to fiction and prose, Malaquais explored film-making particularly while living in Mexico in the early 1940s. He wrote several scripts and treatments and this series contains a small sample of this work. Within this segment is research and grant applications for a documentary film Malaquais wanted to make about the native Indians of Peru. French cinematographer Edmond Séchan was considered for the project and the material includes letters from Séchan and several film stills from the set of
Also of importance are five incomplete journals written in French, particularly the journal dated 1943 to 1954 that was apparently buried and kept by his wife for safe-keeping.
Reviews and clippings in English, French, and other languages are also included in this series. In addition, two scrapbooks contain clippings from 1944 to 1960. Due to the fragility of these scrapbooks, each has been restricted and a digitized version is available for use.
Purchase, 2010 (10-04-005-P)
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Amy E. Armstrong, 2011-2012
The Norman Mailer Papers, the Hilary Mills Loomis Collection of Norman Mailer, and the Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Records at the Ransom Center contain additional material related to Jean Malaquais.
Two reel-to-reel tapes, one in which Malaquais recounts his memories of André Gide (1963)
and the other conference proceedings at Monash University (1966), as well as an audio
cassette tape of France Culture Radio (undated) were transferred to the Ransom Center Sound
Recordings Collection and are described individually in a list at the end of this finding
aid and in a
Three VHS tapes containing various segments about Malaquais televised on French television (1995-1996, undated) were transferred to the Ransom Center Film Collection.