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Christian Prigent (c) Vanda Benes
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Poet and literary critic Christian Prigent, born in 1945 in Saint-Brieuc, France, challenges his readers to accept the new and leave the familiar appearance and sound of words behind. He is searching for a “living language that articulates its particularity in opposition to any collectivisation of experience, of the unconscious or of styles”. Prigent is obsessive in creating an authorship as ‘ôteur’ – of an author perforating himself as much as the stereotypes of the linguistic present around him. He links discourses and opens up poetic echo chambers in which even the great voices in the poetic tradition are reconstructed and deconstructed. In bold knots of sound, word-mergers and metaphors, Prigent constantly releases a wild swarm for the senses.
Since the 1960s this doctor of philosophy has been taking the stage with his very different poems, still – witty, experimental and provocative – part of the dynamic French avant-garde. Prigent is also a founder of the journal TXT and winner of the 2007 Prix Louis Guilloux. He has lived in Rome and Berlin and, since 2007, back in his original home, Brittany.
Publications (a selection): La belle journée (poems) 1969; La Langue et ses monstres (essay), POL, 1989; Peep-Show (novel in verse), Le Bleu du Ciel, 2006; Demain je meurs (novel), POL, 2007; Météo des plages (novel in verse), POL, 2010; Compile (CD with book), POL, 2011; La Vie moderne (poems), POL, Paris, 2012; Les Enfances Chino (novel), POL, 2013;
In English: An Anatomy Lesson (translated by Adrian Kien) Free Poetry 2010