Gabrielle Wittkop: The Enigma of the Tiger — Nicole Caligaris
now @ minor lits
“I intend here to pursue a couple of questions, taking up more attentively aspects of Gabrielle Wittkop’s writings liable to open avenues of research, and which offer an occasion to explain the extent to which I find her writing indispensable in a period bolted into its unthinking principles, of books for likes and smileys, and the literature of good causes offering redemption of all kinds …”
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My translation of ‘Gabrielle Wittkop: The Enigma of the Tiger’ by Nicole Caligaris is now available at
. You can read it here.This text was composed for the first gathering of la Société des Amis de Gabrielle Wittkop, held on May 4th 2024. More information and instructions on how to support the organisation, as well as exclusive texts, interviews, and more, can be found on their website.
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Gabrielle Wittkop (1920–2002), self-styled heir to the Marquis de Sade, was a writer and translator whose remarkable series of novels and travelogues are laced with sardonic humour and dark sexuality, with recurrent themes of death, decay, disease, and decrepitude. Her first novel, The Necrophiliac, appeared in 1972. She committed suicide aged 82, following a lung cancer diagnosis.
Nicole Caligaris is a writer who has published numerous novels with Mercure de France, Éditions Verticales, Le Nouvel Attila and elsewhere, since she debuted in 1997 with La Scie patriotique. Her most recent novel, Carnivale, was published by Verticales in 2021. She also teaches on the Master Lettres et Création littéraire programme at L’Ecole Supérieure d’Art et Design Le Havre-Rouen.
