Jean Basile was the pen name of Jean Basile Bezroudnoff (January 5, 1932 – February 10, 1992), a French-born Canadian journalist and novelist from Quebec.[1] A key figure in the underground counterculture of Montreal in the 1960s and 1970s, he is most noted for his "Mongol" trilogy of novels, La Jument des mongols, Le Grand Khan and Les Voyages d'Irkoutsk, and for cofounding the counterculture magazine Mainmise.[2]
Jean Basile | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1932 Paris, France |
| Died | February 10, 1992 |
| Occupation | novelist |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Period | 1960s-1980s |
| Notable works | La Jument des mongols, Le Grand Khan, Les Voyages d'Irkoutsk |
Born in Paris, France to a Russian immigrant father and a French mother on January 5, 1932,[2] he moved to Montreal in 1960.[2]
Career
editHe joined Le Devoir as an arts and literary critic in 1962.[1] He left the paper in 1970, founding Mainmise with Georges Khal and Christian Allègre in 1970,[3] before rejoining Le Devoir in 1973.
La Jument des mongols, the first novel in his Mongol trilogy, was published in 1964. It was followed by Le Grand Khan in 1967 and Les Voyages d'Irkoutsk in 1970. Basile was a gay man,[4] and the novels were noted for being among the first in Quebec literary history to openly address homosexuality.[5] In an early issue of Mainmise, he also called for the creation of a gay liberation movement in Montreal.[4]
Some of his other works, including Coca et cocaine and La Culture du canabis, addressed drug culture.[4] He also wrote Joli Tambour, a historical drama play about the first hangman in New France.[6]
He became director of the Éditions de l'Aurore publishing house in 1976, and later established his own publishing company, Les Éditions Jean Basile, in 1979.[1] He joined La Presse in 1984.[3]
He died in 1992 in Montreal.[1]
Works
edit- Lorenzo (1963)
- La Jument des mongols (1964)
- Journal poétique, 1964-1965: Élégie pour apprendre à vivre suivie de Pièces brèves (1965)
- Joli Tambour (1966)
- Le Grand Khan (1967)
- Les Voyages d'Irkoutsk (1970)
- L'Écriture radio-télé (1976)
- Coca et cocaine (1977)
- La Culture du canabis (1979)
- Le Piano-trompette (1983)
- Iconostase pour Pier-Paolo Pasolini (1984)
- Adieu... je pars pour Viazma! (1987)
- Keepsake 1 (1992)
References
edit- ^ a b c d Basile, Jean Archived 2016-11-01 at the Wayback Machine, The Canadian Encyclopedia.
- ^ a b c "Jean Basile : Jean qui parle, Jean qui écrit". La Presse, July 15, 2013.
- ^ a b W. H. New, Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 2002. ISBN 0802007619. Entry "Basile, Jean", p. 94.
- ^ a b c Jonathan Lerner, "That Whole Thing the Dead Come Out Of". Lambda Literary Foundation, July 29, 2010.
- ^ Guy Poirier, Québécois Literature Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine. glbtq.com, February 24, 2007.
- ^ John Gassner and Edward Quinn, The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama. Dover Publications, 2002. ISBN 978-0486420646. p. 111.