Edmond Jabès

A seminal figure of twentieth-century literarture, Edmond Jabès (1912 — 1991) was born in Cairo and studied in the early thirties in Paris, where he formed literary relationships with Max Jacob and the Surrealists. In 1956, he was forced to leave Egypt during the Suez crisis and settled in Paris.

“All of Edmond Jabès’ books explore the double wound of consciousness, our being set apart from the rest of creation. His work explores the nature of the book and word—of man defining himself through the word against all that challenges him—death, silence, the void, the infinite or God, our symbol for all of these.”

In 1963, Jabès published the first volume of The Book of Questions—a ten-year project encompassing seven books. “It attempts to answer the fundamental question of Mallarmé, who insisted that ‘whatever is sacred—whatever is to remain—must be clothed in mystery’. But for Jabès, it is also the question of Jewish survival.”   

For Jabès—“You are the one who is writing and who is written—I’m in the book, the book is my universe, my roof, my country—the book is my breath and my rest.”

There is a story, but it is never told—only commented on.

In 1967, Edmond Jabès became a French citizen. He received the Prix des Critiques and the Grand Prix National de la Poésie.  

His work includes: The Book of Questions, The Book of Resemblances, The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion, The Book of Shares, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book, and Desire for a Beginning Dread of One Single End.