Charles Dantzig is a French author, born in Tarbes (France) on October 7, 1961.
Early life and career
Charles Dantzig decided to study Law after his baccalauréat. Having completed a doctorate in Law from the university of Toulouse, he moved to Paris.
A few years later, at the age of twenty-eight, he published an essay on Remy de Gourmont entitled Remy de Gourmont, Cher Vieux Daim ! (Le Rocher, 1990), soon followed by his first collection of poems, Le chauffeur est toujours seul'''', to critical acclaim.
Author and publisher
Charles Dantzig joined the publishing company Les Belles Lettres, launching three new collections: "Brique", specialising in contemporary literature, "Eux & nous", in which French writers discuss the authors of classical Antiquity, and "Trésors de la nouvelle", which, as its name suggests, specialises in short stories. He published the first French translation of a collection of poetry by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thousand-and-First Ship (Mille et un navires), and himself translated the play The Vegetable (Un legume). He also translated the first French edition of a collection of Oscar Wilde's journalism, Aristotle at an Afternoon Tea (Aristote à l'heure du thé). Charles Dantzig also oversaw the publication of Marcel Schwob's complete works (Œuvres, Les Belles Lettres).
Les Belles Lettres published his early essays, including Il n'y a pas d'Indochine (1995) and La Guerre du cliché (1998), and his poetry collections Que le siècle commence (1996, awarded the prix Paul Verlaine), Ce qui se passe vraiment dans les toiles de Jouy (1999), and À quoi servent les avions ? (2001), which foreshadowed the events of 9/11. He later wrote, "A few people have said to me that the mysterious power of poetry is such that it foresees events. I'm not so sure. [...] Poetry reasons rather than foresees. The result – as in all literature, and even in all works of art – is thought. Except that rather than obtaining it by sparking speculations, it does so by sparking images, within the demands of rhythm, and in some cases, prosody" (J'ai interrompu très tôt une carrière de poète). The first selection of his poems was published in 2003 with the title En souvenir des long-courriers. 2003 also saw the publication of the Bestiaire, a collection of animal poetry.
He then moved to Grasset, where he oversees the "Cahiers Rouges" series, breathing fresh life into the list by publishing cult classics as well as major twentieth-century diarists and authors of memoirs, or publishing brand-new anthologies (Le Cahier Rouge des plus belles lettres de langue française, 2017). As an editor at Grasset's, he published many award-winning literary authors.
Between 2006 and 2008, Charles Dantzig penned the epilogue for the special reports in the monthly Magazine Littéraire, offering his faithful readership his reliably iconoclastic literary views on everything from the French-speaking world to authors and psychoanalysis. From 2011 it has been followed by the literary chronicle in the Magazine Littéraire. He's also a producer on the cultural public radio France Culture, where he created "Secret professionnel", on the artistic creation, one of the 10 best radio shows, now followed by "Personnages en personne", a weekly portrait of a fictional character.
In 2011 he re-created the famous Stendhal Club, which he presides. It has only 12 members in the world (American member: Daniel Mendelsohn; English member: Patrick McGuinness, Oxford). The Stendhal Club has published two issues of his "possibly annual review".
In 2015, he landed a new literary collection under the name, "Le Courage". It is the only multilingual review in the world, presenting every text in its original language and with its French translation. In 2017, the review has received the Paris Rive gauche award of the Best literary review
He was awarded the Grand Prix Jean Giono for his body of work and the grand prix de littérature Paul-Morand.