Jean Portante (born 19 December 1950 in Differdange) is a Luxembourgish writer who resides in Paris. He has written novels, stories, plays, journalistic articles and poetry, and has been widely translated.
Numerous books have been translated including in English Point/Erasing, translated by Anne Marie Glasheen (Daedalus, 2003) and In Reality, translated by Zoë Skoulding (Seren Press, 2013). He is a translator of poetry into French from Spanish, Italian, English and German. His novels include Mrs Haroy ou la mémoire de la baleine (Editions Phi, 1997) among others, which has been translated into many languages, and he is also the author of the biography Allen Ginsberg: L'autre Amérique (Le Castor Astral, 1999). Portante’s collection of poems L’Etrange langue (Editions Le Taillis Pré, 2002) won the Mallarmé award in France in 2003, and the same year he was given the Grand Prix d’Automne de la Société des Gens de Lettres for his entire life’s work in poetry. In 2005, Le Castor Astral published a selected poems, La Cendre des mots, covering his work from 1989 to 2005. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Académie Mallarmé. In 2008 he co-founded the French poetry magazine Inuits dans la jungle with the poet Jacques Darras, while in Luxembourg he heads the literary magazine Transkrit. In 2011 he was awarded Luxembourg’s Batty Weber National Prize, which is given every three years for a life’s work. His latest books are En réalité (Editions Phi 2008); La réinvention de l'oubli (Editions le Castor Astral, 2010), Conceptions (Editions Phi, 2012) and Après le tremblement (Editions Le Castor Astral, 2013).
As he describes in his novel Mrs Haroy ou la mémoire de la baleine, from an early age he felt like a world citizen.
However, for Jean Portante, French is a language outside the dyad Italy–Luxembourg, a language learned, tamed, but which always remains to be conquered. Portante called it a "strange language" (the title of one of his collections which was awarded the French Prix Mallarmé in 2003).[1]
Jean Portante started to write when he was 33 years. Before, he studied in Nancy, France. In 1983, when he wrote his first book of poems, Fire and mud, he moved to Paris. He translated works by Juan Gelman and Gonzalo Rojas into French.
Currently, he heads the Luxembourg collection Graphiti (poetry) editions. In France, he is a member of the Académie Mallarmé and the Prix Guillaume Apollinaire. In 2003 he received the Grand Award of the Society, for all his work, and the Prix Mallarmé. Previously, his novel Mrs. Haroy or the memory of the whale to be filmed in 2010 earned him Luxembourg's Servais Prize (best book of the year in any genre).
In Luxembourg, he founded in 2009 the literary magazine Transkrit, dedicated to translating contemporary literature, and Phi.[2] In France, he co-founded, with Jacques Darras and Jean-Yves Reuzeau, the journal Inuits dans la jungle, the first issue being published in June 2008.[3]
In March 2011, he was awarded the Batty Weber Prize for his work as a whole. The jury commented: "Since the beginning of the 1980s, Jean Portante has explored topics related to identity, from memory to forgetfulness, in various literary genres, especially poetry, the novel, drama and the essay. His literary style continues to evolve, marked by strong intertextuality, providing access to new interpretations and inciting pluralized reading." Mention was also made of Portante's efforts to "promote Luxembourg literature both at home and abroad".[4]
Translations (selection)La dernière traversée de la Manche, de Pierre Joris. Poèmes. Editions PHI, Luxembourg 1995 – Hiver clinique, de Ioana Craciunescu. Poèmes. Editions PHI, Luxembourg 1996 – L’épiphanie de l’alphabet, de Maria Luisa Spaziani, Editions PHI. Poèmes Luxembourg 1997 – La cathédrale en flammes, de Guy Rewenig. Roman. Editions du Castor Astral. Paris 1997 – Obscur ouvert, de Juan Gelman. Editions PHI. Poèmes. Luxembourg 1997 – Christ avec renard urbain, de John F. Deane, Editions PHI. Poèmes. Luxembourg 1999 – Poèmes quotidiens, de Esteban S. Cobas. Editions Indigo, Paris 1999 – La nuit avant de monter à bord, de Daniel Samoilovitch. Editions PHI. Poèmes. Luxembourg 2001 – Salaires de l’impie et autres poèmes, de Juan Gelman. Editions PHI. Poèmes. Luxembourg 2002 – Un nirvana cruel, de Jerome Rotheberg. Editions PHI. Poèmes. Luxembourg 2002 – L’illuminé, de Gonzalo Rojas. Editions Myriam Solal. Poèmes. Paris 2003 – Par dessus l’épaule du poème, de Milan Richter, traduction collective, dans le cadre des ateliers de traduction de la poésie contemporaine de l’IPW. Editions PHI, Luxembourg, 2005. – Travaux en vert, de Simona Popescu, traduction collective, dans le cadre des ateliers de traduction de la poésie contemporaine de l’IPW. Editions PHI, Luxembourg, 2007. – Hagen interroge Siegfried sur les oiseaux, de Hans D. Gräf, Editions Alidades, Paris, 2010 – Maria Mariosh, de Reina Maria Rodriguez. Ed. Horizontes insulares, Canaries, 2010 – Espace où tout est bord, de Aléxis Gómez Rosa, Ed, Horizontes Insulares, Canaries, 2010 – Une étrange odeur de monde, de Víctor Rodríguez Nuñez, Editions L'Oreille du loup, Paris, 2011 – L'Amant mondial, de Juan Gelman, Editions Caractères, Paris, 2012 – Pologne/1931 de Jerome Rothenberg, Editions Caractères, Paris, 2013 – Blues en seize, de Stefano Benni, Editions PHI, Luxembourg, 2013
CD: (selection)CD (and vidéo) Peauéphoné, musique de Jean-Louis Dhermy à partir du texte de Jean Portante : le partage des peauxCD La Strana lingua. Roberto Carosone canta Jean Portante