Tiphaine Samoyault Explained

Tiphaine Samoyault (June 1968, Boulogne-Billancourt) is a French university lecturer, literary critic, and novelist, specializing in the work of Roland Barthes. She is the niece of harpsichordist Blandine Verlet and writer, academic and psychoanalyst Agnès Verlet.^[1] In 2015, she received the Grand Prize in Non-Fiction from the Société des gens de lettres.

Early life and education

Tiphaine Samoyault was born in Boulogne-Billancourt in June 1968.^[2] She grew up in Fontainebleau, in the Château de Fontainebleau, where her father, Jean-Pierre Samoyault, was curator.^[3] This childhood is evoked in her first novel, La Cour des Adieux, named after the cour d'Honneur of the palace, where Napoleon said his farewells.

Her childhood was immersed in music, notably at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, directed at the time by Nadia Boulanger, and located near her parents' apartments in the château. A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Samoyault wrote her doctoral thesis on French: Romans-Mondes, les formes de la totalisation romanesque au vingtième siècle|italics=yes (1996) and her habilitation thesis on French: l'Actualité de la fiction : théorie, comparaison, traduction|italics=yes (2003).

Career

After working at the Université Paris-VIII, she became Professor of Comparative Literature at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3. Until June 2012, she headed the comparative literature department at Université Paris-VIII. A former resident of the Villa Médicis (2000–2001),^[4] Samoyault is also a novelist and translator of, among other works, portions of the new edition of James Joyce's Ulysses, and of David Shulman and Charles Malamoud's essay Ta'ayushn : journal d'un combat pour la paix : Israël Palestine, 2002-2005 (Le Seuil, 2006).

A member of the reading committee at Editions du Seuil, she also contributes to France Culture and was a contributor to French: La Quinzaine littéraire|italics=yes until September 2015.^[5]

She is a member of the editorial board of the online journal French: En attendant Nadeau|italics=yes.

^[6] Since 2022, Samoyault has been writing a serial for French: Le Monde Livres|italics=yes.^[7]

Awards and honours

• Grand prize in non-fiction, Société des gens de lettres (2015)^[8]
• Longlisted, Jan Michalski Prize (2015)

Selected works

Essays

• Excès du roman : essai, Paris, Maurice Nadeau, 1999
• Littérature et mémoire du présent, Nantes, Pleins feux, 2001 (fascicule)
• L'intertextualité : mémoire de la littérature, Paris, Nathan, 2001 ; rééd. A. Colin, Paris, 2005
• La montre cassée : forme et signification d'un motif dans les arts du temps, Verdier, Lagrasse, 2004
• Traduction et violence, Seuil, 2020

Children's documentary

• Le monde des pictogrammes, Paris, Circonflexe, 1995 - English edition: Alphabetical order : how the alphabet began, New York, Penguin / Viking, 1996

Biographies

• Roland Barthes, Paris, Le Seuil, 2015

Introductions or commentaries to major works of French literature

• Électre de Jean Giraudoux (1997)
• W ou le souvenir d'enfance de Georges Perec (1997)
• Impressions d'Afrique de Raymond Roussel (2005)
• Locus solus de Raymond Roussel (2005)
• Le Grand Meaulnes d'Alain-Fournier (2009)

Novels and short stories

• La Cour des adieux, Maurice Nadeau, Paris, 1999
• Météorologie du rêve, Le Seuil, Paris, 2000
• Les Indulgences, Le Seuil, Paris, 2003
• La Main négative, Editions Argol, Paris, 2008
• Bête de cirque, Le Seuil, Paris, 2013

Notes and References

1. Web site: Tiphaine Samoyault, essayiste : 'Le clavecin de Blandine Verlet est en moi, comme mon propre souffle'. Tiphaine Samoyault, essayist: 'Blandine Verlet's harpsichord is in me, like my own breath' . France Musique . 5 September 2024 . fr . 26 March 2023.
2. Web site: Tiphaine Samoyault . editions-verdier.fr . Editions Verdier . 7 September 2024.
3. News: Trois mille deux cents vies. Three thousand two hundred lives . 5 September 2024 . L'Humanité . 30 September 1999 . fr.
4. Web site: Résidents Archivi. Residents Archive . Villa Medici . 5 September 2024 . fr-FR.
5. News: Samoyault . Tiphaine . Pachet . Pierre . Lacoste . Jean . N'achetez pas le prochain numéro de la Quinzaine!. Don't buy the next issue of Quinzaine! . 5 September 2024 . artpress . 8 October 2015 . fr-FR.
6. Tiphaine Samoyault, Auteur à En attendant Nadeau. Tiphaine Samoyault, Author at 'En attendant Nadeau' . En attendant Nadeau . 7 September 2024 . fr-FR.
7. News: Tiphaine Samoyault, ses dernières publications dans 'Le Monde'. Tiphaine Samoyault, her latest publications in 'Le Monde'. 5 September 2024 . Le Monde.fr . fr-FR.
8. Web site: Grand Prix SGDL de la Non-Fiction. SGDL Grand Prize for Non-Fiction . sgdl.org . 5 September 2024.