Editions of Midnight

the Editions of Minuit is a French Publisher , founded by Jean Bruller and Pierre de Lescure in 1941, during the German Occupation of France. In February 1942 is published the first work: the Silence of the sea , Vercors (pseudonym To burn).

These editions functioned clandestinely until the Libération, publishing 25 works of writers of the Résistance, thus circumventing the Censure and the Propagande of Vichy (in particular the New French Review ). More neutral politically than Thought Free (dismantled by German), the editions were opened to the gaullists authors and to Communists.

After the war, the publisher was directed by Jerome Lindon of 1948 with its death in 2001. It since is directed by her daughter Irene Lindon.

Origin of the name

If the word Minuit lets imagine the manuscripts printed clandestinely during the night, the history is different. The first two works are printed by Claude Oudeville, who only works during the day. It will spend two months thus to print the 250 specimens of the Silence of the sea . The following works will be printed Sundays, in the workshop deserted from Ernest Aulard.

Jean To burn, in the Battle of Silence clarifies the literary inspiration of the name of the editions:

“underground Editions, Editions of the Catacombs, Editions of Freedom, Editions of the Refusal… But one day, street Bonaparte, - I played with the words: shade at night midnight - the latter reconsider to me sudden a title of Duhamel, another of Mac Orlan… the Confession of Midnight … the Tradition of Midnight … Bon blood, but here what we need: Editions of Midnight! I am so magic that I slip by at once to Lescure which is less happy than me”.

History

“ if I managed to set up, in spite of the difficulties, the organization necessary to the publication of my account (impression, stitching, diffusion), one could then use it for a series of other works! Wasn't a clandestine publisher what it was necessary, in the final analysis, to appease the writers in evil of publication? ”

- Jean To burn, the Battle of Silence

the Editions of Midnight in particular published: Jean To burn (Vercors), Kostas Axelos, Georges Bataille, Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Bouveresse, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Greenhouses, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Karl August Wittvogel or Clement Rosset, Edith Thomas and Georges Didi-Huberman. During the War of Algeria, they publish the Question of Henri Alleg and Gangrène of Bachir Boumaza. Published in 1958, the two works are immediately censured.

In literature, they published the authors of the Nouveau Novel: Samuel Beckett, Michel Bittern, Claude Simon, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, like Marguerite Duras. More recently, they published: Christian Gailly, Jean Echenoz, Christian Oster, François Bon, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jacques Serena, Marie NDiaye, Eric Chevillard, Tony Duvert, Laurent Mauvignier, Tanguy Viel, Benoit Peeters, Marie-Francoise Plissart and Anne Godard.

Pierre Bourdieu creates within the Editions of Midnight the collection the common direction , charged to make discover authors ignored on the French soil such as Erving Goffman for example.

Bibliography and documents

Anne Simonin, Editions of Midnight, 1942-1955: The duty of insubordination , 1994
Jean To burn, the Battle of Silence of Jean To burn, 1967.

External bonds

leseditionsdeminuit.fr, site of the publisher.
the editions Frenchwoman under the occupation (and in particular the Editions of Midnight )
Editions of Midnight, Alexandre Roulois - historical summaries.

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