Marc-Édouard Nabe

Marc-Édouard Nabe (born Alain Marc Édouard Zannini; 27 December 1958) is a French writer, painter and jazz guitarist.

Marc-Édouard Nabe
Nabe reading Malaparte's The Skin at Casa Malaparte in Capri
Born
Alain Marc Édouard Zannini

(1958-12-27) 27 December 1958
Marseille, France.
OccupationWriter, painter, cartoonist
Years active1974–present
Children1
Parent(s)
Website

After drawing cartoons for several publications including Hara-Kiri, Nabe published his first book Au régal des vermines in 1985 and caused controversy when he appeared on French television to promote it.[1][2][3]

After having 27 books published by various French publishers, Nabe announced in 2010 that he was now self-publishing and invented the concept of 'anti-édition' ('anti-publishing'), which he described as self-publishing for an author who is already well-known.[4] He was shortlisted for the 2010 Prix Renaudot for his novel L'Homme qui arrêta d'écrire, which became the first self-published book to be shortlisted for a major literary prize in France.[5][1]

Biography

Youth and first publications
As a baby with mother Suzanne and father, musician Marcel Zanini, 1959 probably in Marseille.

Nabe was born Alain Marc Édouard Zannini in Marseille. He is the only son of the Greek-Turkish-Italian jazz musician Marcel Zanini and Corsican mother Suzanne Zannini.[6] His family moved to Boulogne-Billancourt in 1969. His father became successful with the radio hit Tu veux ou tu veux pas in 1970 and introduced him to many jazz musicians.[7]

At 15 years old, Nabe went to visit the team of magazine Hara-Kiri[8] and submitted his cartoons to cartoonists Georges Wolinski, Gébé and publishing director Professeur Choron. Some of his work was published, with Nabe taking a pen name by combining his middle names with a diminutive of 'nabot', a French pejorative word for short people that his schoolmates used to tease him with.[1][9] In January 1975, one of Nabe's cartoons appeared on the front cover of newspaper Libération.[10] In 1976, he played the rhythm guitar on one track of his father Marcel Zanini's record Blues and Bounce!, alongside drummer Sam Woodyard and organist Milt Buckner.[11] The track's title, Nabe’s Dream, became the title of the first volume of his diary, published in 1991.

Nabe met Hélène Hottiaux after his one-year national service in Charleville-Mezières in 1980.[2] He extensively described their relationship in his diary as well as in the novel Alain Zannini. Their son, Alexandre Zannini, was born in 1990.

From 1982 onwards, Nabe wrote texts and articles for many publications, including Philippe Sollers's L'Infini and Jean-Edern Hallier's L'Idiot International. Many of these texts were collected in Oui and Non in 1998.[12][13]

First books and media appearances

Nabe's first book, Au régal des vermines, was published in January 1985 by Bernard Barrault.[14] An essay in the tradition of the French lampoon, the book expresses Nabe's views on a number of topics including jazz, literature, art, sexuality, racism and his parents on a polemical, lyrical or satirical tone. In February 1985, Nabe appeared on the literary TV program Apostrophes to present his book. A heated debate occurred between Nabe and the other guests regarding some of Nabe's avowed and controversial literary influences, such as Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Léon Bloy, and Lucien Rebatet. Writer Morgan Sportès read out selected extracts of Nabe's book and accused him of being racist and antisemitic,[15] which led Nabe to assert that there was no reason for the Jews to escape his diatribe. Whilst on the topic, Nabe accused the French association LICRA of making profit by exploiting the horror of the Holocaust. After the show, anti-racist campaigner Georges-Marc Benamou burst in the studio and assaulted Nabe, punching him in the face.[1][16] The LICRA sued Nabe for defamation and incitement to ethnic or racial hatred, but the charges were dropped in 1989.[17]

In 1986, Nabe published his second book, Zigzags, a compilation of various texts (essays, short stories, poetry). His third book, L’âme de Billie Holiday ("Billie Holiday’s soul"), was an essay centred on the jazz-singer Billie Holiday.[18][19] In the same year, a collection of aphorisms, Chacun mes goûts, was published by Le Dilettante.[20] His first novel, Le Bonheur ('Happiness'), was published by Denoël in 1988. It relates the story of Andrea de Bocumar (an anagram of Nabe's pen name), a painter who is hired as an assistant by a mysterious contemporary artist and must travel to Italy to copy Renaissance paintings of feet on levitation.[21] The trip is interrupted by a stay at Bocumar's family in Marseille, where autobiographical and fictional situations and characters are blended in the style of a picaresque novel. In 1989, Nabe opposed the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution by writing La Marseillaise, an essay about free-jazz musician Alber Ayler's version of the French national anthem.[22]

Invited by Jean-Edern Hallier to join the team of L'Idiot International, Nabe collaborated to the newspaper from 1989 to 1990, alongside Eduard Limonov or Jacques Vergès amongst other figures. Articles written by Nabe for this publication included a virulent piece on singer Serge Gainsbourg, a text which Hallier himself deemed "infamous".[23]

Publication of his diary and travels

Between 1991 and 2000, Éditions du Rocher published four volumes of Nabe's diary (Nabe's Dream, 1991; Tohu-Bohu, 1993; Inch'Allah, 1996; Kamikaze, 2000). The first volume ended with the depiction of Nabe's 1985 appearance in Apostrophes. Nabe's diaries covered intimate details of his personal life as well as his encounters with various celebrities of the Parisian artistic and cultural milieu, the depiction of which brought him many enmities.[24] Two books published in 1992 dealt with Nabe's travels: Visage de turc en pleurs, edited by Philippe Sollers, relates Nabe's journey to Turkey, where his father was born.[20] The essay L'Âge du Christ deals with the author's approach to catholic faith and depicts Nabe's First Communion, which took place in Jerusalem the previous year.[25]

In 1995, Nabe joined the 'Blanche' collection of publishing house Gallimard with Lucette, a novel about Lucette Destouches (the widow of Louis-Ferdinand Céline), with whom Nabe had become acquainted.[26] Although the book was conceived as a novel, it only depicted real events from the point of view of actor and director Jean-François Stévenin, with no mention or appearance of Nabe himself.[27] In 1997, Nabe created a newspaper publication, L'Eternité, which contained articles written by Nabe only, along with illustrations by cartoonists Frédéric Pajak and Philippe Vuillemin.[28][29] Publication ended after two issues.

In the mid-1990s, Nabe lived in the same building as writer Michel Houellebecq. Nabe later addressed this fact in Le Vingt-Septième Livre (2009), by evoking Houellebecq's critical and commercial success as opposed to his own marginalization.[30][3] He compared their works by contrasting his own predilection for transcendence, lyricism and excess with Houellebecq's minimalist prose and concerns for depression and sexual misery in the Western capitalistic world.[3][31][5]

Following the publication of four volumes of his diary, Nabe left Paris for a seven-months exile on the Greek island of Patmos, where the Apocalypse of John is said to have been written. There, he used material from his unpublished diary covering the years 1991 to 2000 to write the novel Alain Zannini, then burned the diary manuscripts.[1][32] Nabe claimed that this act was necessary in order to transform his diaristic writing into novelistic writing, and that too many of his friends had been hurt by the publication of the previous volumes. He also said that there was no point publishing his diary now that anyone could write a blog online, and that he had sensed that it would soon become increasingly difficult to get his diary published.[32] The resulting novel Alain Zanini was released in 2002 and longlisted for the 2002 Prix Goncourt.[32][33]

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, Nabe reacted to the event by writing an essay entitled Une lueur d'espoir ('A Glimmer of Hope'), in which he commented on the media coverage of the event and asserted that Osama bin Laden was acting in self-defence against the USA.[1][34] Nabe's interest in the conflicts in the Middle-East led him to travel to Iraq prior to its American invasion in 2003.[1] The trip served as material for the novel Printemps de Feu.[35]

Break-up with the publishing industry and hiatus

In 2005, Éditions du Rocher was sold to a pharmaceutical business. Prior to that, Nabe used to receive monthly payments in exchange for yielding his royalties, according to a non-written contract.[36] Following the sale, the publishing house ended the publication of Nabe's books and Nabe sued the company, thus retrieving the copyright ownership of all of his works.[1][37] Finding himself without a publisher, Nabe spent the following years writing 'tracts', namely broadsides dealing with controversial current affairs and pasted on public walls all around Paris.[5] Topics covered included euthanasia, the 2006 Prix Goncourt handed to Jonathan Littell, the accusations of antisemitism faced by cartoonist Siné, Zinedine Zidane's headbutting of Marco Materazzi during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final, the 2007 French presidential election and Iran's nuclear program.[38]

No new works were published in book form between 2004 and 2010, apart from a preface to a new edition of Au Régal des Vermines in 2006, later reprinted as Le Vingt-Septième Livre (2009).[3]

Self-publishing as 'anti-publishing'

In January 2010, Nabe announced that he was now self-publishing and coined the phrase 'anti-édition' ('anti-publishing') to describe his approach. He stated that 'anti-publishing' was a way for an author who had already been published within the literary system to get out of it and create an alternative system. In this sense it would differ from regular self-publishing.[4] Nabe created an online shop to sell his own books, the first of which was the novel L'Homme qui arrêta d'écrire ("The Man who Stopped Writing"). The book was shortlisted for the Prix Renaudot,[1][4][5] something which had not yet happened to a self-published novel.[39] The prize eventually went to Virginie Despentes.[40] The following year, he self-published L'Enculé, a novel inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair.[41]

In January 2014, during an appearance on French TV show Ce soir (ou jamais !) where he was invited to give his views on the Dieudonné affair, Nabe announced that he was writing a 1,000 pages long essay opposing the rise of conspiracy theories, including those promoted in France by comedian Dieudonné and right-wing essayist and militant Alain Soral.[42][43]

In December 2014, he announced the publication of Patience, a new magazine entirely written by himself, with a first issue discussing the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in an 80-page long article entitled Un État de grâce ('A State of Grace').[42] A second issue was published in August 2015, under the title La revanche de Choron ('Choron's revenge'). Its 152-page long article dealt with the Charlie Hebdo shooting, which it presented as an act of justice indirectly avenging Professeur Choron, the co-founder of the first version of Charlie Hebdo (1970 to 1981) who had been evicted from the publication. The cover featured a picture of Adolf Hitler holding a Je Suis Charlie sign. The magazine was self-promoted with a publicity stunt during the announcement of the winners of the 2015 Prix Goncourt and Prix Renaudot.[44]

The day following Emmanuel Macron's election as President of France in May 2017, Nabe released Les Porcs 1, the first 1,000 pages volume of the self-published essay against conspiracy theories that he had announced in 2014. He stated that it would eventually comprise three volumes.[20]

In February 2019, a few months after the beginning of the Gilets Jaunes protests in France, Nabe published Aux râts des pâquerettes, a critical and satirical essay on the movement.[45] In this text, he blamed the protesters for being too mild and resigned to the brutality of the French police, whilst suggesting that violence and commitment are inherent to revolution, citing Nechayev's Catechism of a Revolutionary as an example.[45] A theatrical adaptation of the book as a monologue was produced and performed by actor Paco Balabanov in October 2019 in Paris, with a second set of dates announced in 2020.[46][47]

In February 2020, the magazine Valeurs actuelles branded Nabe "the most censored writer in France".[48]

Musical activity

In the 2000s, Nabe played the guitar on recordings of the band Les Primitifs du Futur, alongside cartoonist Robert Crumb.[49]

Works

Non-fiction
  • Au Régal des vermines 1985; republished with an added preface in 2006; third edition self-published in 2012
  • Zigzags, 1986
  • Chacun mes goûts, 1986
  • L'Âme de Billie Holiday, 1986, second edition in 2006
  • La Marseillaise, 1989
  • Rideau, 1992
  • Visage de Turc en pleurs, 1992
  • Petits riens sur presque tout, 1992
  • L'Âge du Christ, 1992
  • Nuage, 1993
  • Oui, 1998
  • Non, 1998
  • Coups d'Épée dans l'eau, 1999
  • Une lueur d'espoir, 2001
  • J'enfonce le clou, 2004
  • Le Vingt-Septième Livre, 2009
  • Les Porcs, 2017.
  • Aux râts des pâquerettes, 2019

Diary
  • I, Nabe's Dream, 1991
  • II, Tohu-Bohu, 1993
  • III, Inch'Allah, 1996
  • IV, Kamikaze, 2000

Novels
  • Le Bonheur, 1988
  • Lucette, 1995, second edition in 2012.
  • Je suis mort, 1998
  • Alain Zannini, 2002
  • Printemps de feu, 2003
  • L'Homme qui arrêta d'écrire, 2010.
  • L'Enculé, 2011.

Poetry
  • Loin des fleurs, 1998

Short stories
  • K.-O. et autres contes, 1999

Other works
  • L'affaire Zannini, 2003
  • Morceaux choisis, 2006

References
  1. Gallix, Andrew (23 March 2011). "Marc-Édouard Nabe: the 'unacceptable' face of French controversy". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  2. DROUHET, Cyril; VEBRET, Joseph; ARDISSON, Thierry (9 December 2010). Dictionnaire des provocateurs (in French). Place des éditeurs. ISBN 978-2-259-21285-4.
  3. Van Wesemael, Sabine (2017), Michel Houellebecq, figure de roman (in French), Classiques Garnier, pp. 31–47, ISBN 978-2-406-05910-3, retrieved 23 January 2020
  4. "Nabe: 'Je dois tout à Internet, mais lui aussi me doit tout'". L'Express (in French). 18 March 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  5. "Prix Renaudot: la revanche de Nabe le maudit?". Slate (in French). 31 October 2010. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  6. "Official Website Biography" (in French).
  7. Royer, Florian (18 August 2017). "Marcel Zanini : "La première fois que j'ai entendu Coltrane, j'ai été horrifié"". France Musique (in French). Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  8. "Interview de Marc-Édouard Nabe". Europe 1 Social Club (in French). 16 December 2014. C’est en 1974 […], que je suis allé taper, au culot, à quinze ans et demi, à la porte de la rue des Trois-Portes, ou était le siège de Hara-Kiri. […] On tape à la porte et puis Wolinski vous ouvre, et puis il dit « Qu’est-ce que tu veux ? » et je lui dis : « Bah, j’ai des dessins » et il me dit « Eh bien, montre ». Il ouvre le carton, au bout du troisième il a éclaté de rire.
  9. "Interview de Marc-Édouard Nabe" (video). Tout le monde en parle. ina.fr. 17 November 2001.
  10. Nabe, Marc-Édouard (1991). Nabe's Dream. Éditions du Rocher. ISBN 9782268011028.
  11. "Marcel Zanini / Milt Buckner, Sam Woodyard – Blues And Bounce!" (in French). discogs. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  12. Nabe, Marc-Édouard (1998). Oui.
  13. Nabe, Marc-Édouard (1998). Non.
  14. Palou, Anthony (1 August 2012). "Au régal des vermines". Le Figaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  15. Ina.fr, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel-. "Vif désaccord entre Marc-Edouard Nabe et Morgan Sportes". Ina.fr (in French). Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  16. "albert spaggiari-marc-edouard nabe Camarades de cavale". L'Express (in French). 30 July 2009. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  17. Cass. 2e Ch., 8 février 1989, n° 87-12.836
  18. Jamin, Jean (1 June 2006). "Sonner comme soi-même. Ce que ne nous disent pas les vies de Billie Holiday". L'Homme. Revue française d'anthropologie (in French) (177–178): 179–197. doi:10.4000/lhomme.21694. ISSN 0439-4216.
  19. Prévos, André J. M. (1988). "Review of Au Miroir du jazz, ; West Coast Jazz, ; Cantare il jazz. L'universo vocale afroamericano, ; L'Ame noire de Billie Holiday". The Black Perspective in Music. 16 (1): 114–116. doi:10.2307/1215133. ISSN 0090-7790. JSTOR 1215133.
  20. Réprouvés, bannis, infréquentables. David, Angie, 1978-, Soulié, Rémi. [Paris]. ISBN 978-2-7561-1207-7. OCLC 1028619699.CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. Émission Apostrophes du 8 Janvier 1988.
  22. Patrick Besson, « Marc-Édouard Nabe, Hymne à la désobéissance », Le Figaro Littéraire, 6 novembre 1989, p. 20
  23. Carrère, Emmanuel (25 September 2014). Limonov. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-197642-6.
  24. "Ceux qui nomment leurs victimes". L'Express (in French). 1 February 2001. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  25. La galaxie Jésus (in French). Editions de l'Atelier. ISBN 978-2-7082-4350-7.
  26. "Lucette – Blanche – GALLIMARD – Site Gallimard". gallimard.fr. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  27. """Pulp"" de Charles Bukowski et ""Lucette"" de Marc-Edouard Nabe . La féerie, c'est pour une autre fois". Libération.fr (in French). 23 February 1995. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  28. Besson, Patrick (26 May 2010). Le Plateau télé: Chronique du temps passé devant la télévision (in French). Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-66038-7.
  29. "Nabe : Taddéi parle de l'Eternité - Vidéo dailymotion". Dailymotion. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  30. Cloonan, William (2010). "Seuil on the Threshold of Change: the Novel in 2009". The French Review. 84 (1): 18–36. ISSN 0016-111X. JSTOR 25758332.
  31. "Mon voisin Houellebecq". L'Express (in French). 29 January 2009. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  32. "Nabe : "Pourquoi j'ai brûlé mon Journal intime"". L'Express (in French). 1 March 2007. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  33. "ON EN PARLE LE JURY GONCOURT LIVRE SA SELECTION DE RENTREE". La Croix (in French). 5 September 2002. ISSN 0242-6056. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  34. Mahy, Fanny (1 September 2011). "Du fait divers médiatique à la critique sociale, représentation du 11 septembre dans Une lueur d'espoir de Marc-Édouard Nabe". Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. 15 (4): 459–467. doi:10.1080/17409292.2011.594279. ISSN 1740-9292.
  35. "Les œuvres de Nabe à l'Office du tourisme-Paris". L'Orient-Le Jour. 20 March 2009.
  36. "Ce que gagnent les écrivains". L'Express (in French). 2 April 2010. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  37. Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, Chambre civile 3, 9 juillet 2008, 06/17664, 9 July 2008, retrieved 11 January 2020
  38. Collectif (8 July 2015). La Revue Littéraire N°30 (in French). Editions Léo Scheer. ISBN 978-2-7561-0868-1.
  39. magazine, Le Point (7 November 2010). "Un finaliste du Renaudot autoédité: du jamais vu dans les prix littéraires". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  40. Match, Paris. "Virginie Despentes, de "Baise-moi" au prix Renaudot". Paris Match (in French). Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  41. Rosen, Alan (November 2013). Rosen, Alan (ed.). Literature of the Holocaust. Cambridge Core. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139022125. ISBN 9781139022125. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  42. "Avant la sortie de son livre contre Soral et Dieudonné, Nabe sort un magazine". Les Inrocks (in French). 4 December 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  43. Caviglioli, David (19 January 2014). "Je vais leur faire bouffer leurs quenelles par la racine !". L'Obs.
  44. "L'annonce du lauréat du Goncourt perturbée par des activistes nabiens" (in French). AgoraVox. 13 November 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  45. Audetat, Michel (3 June 2019). "Nabe et Ramuz contre les 'gilets jaunes'". Le Matin Dimanche. p. 17.
  46. "Théâtre La Croisée des Chemins | Aux rats des pâquerettes". LaCroiséeDesChemins (in French). Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  47. "Aux rats des pâquerettes / Nabe (texte), Balabanov / Théâtre la Croisée des Chemins / Octobre 2019". Service culturel (in French). 21 October 2019. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  48. Brelet, Amaury. "Exil, Céline, #MeToo... Rencontre avec Marc-Edouard Nabe, l'écrivain le plus censuré de France (2/2)". Valeurs actuelles (in French). Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  49. "Sunnyside Records: by Les Primitifs du Futur". sunnysiderecords.com. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
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