Gallimard editions still intend to republish the anti-Semitic pamphlets of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, with an adapted critical apparatus, said Thursday the CEO of the house, Antoine Gallimard. “I never said I would give it up. I suspended the project,” said Mr. Gallimard, interviewed by AFP on the sidelines of the opening of the exhibition “Céline, the manuscripts found” in Paris. The prestigious publishing house had faced a multitude of negative reactions to the announcement of this project at the end of 2017. Believing that the conditions were “not met”, it had backed down in January 2018. These three books published by the author from Journey to the End of the Night, between 1937 and 1941 (Bagatelles pour un massacre, L’École des corpses and Les Beaux Draps), are full of insults against the Jews, presented as personal enemies of the author. They cannot be found in bookstores. Gallimard wishes to bring them together under the title Écrits polemiques, recontextualizing them in the work of Céline, a virulent anti-Semite, and in their time. “For the moment, the task is to publish the unpublished novels. It’s a beautiful sequence”, explained Mr. Gallimard, who published War on Thursday, and will follow London and The Legend of King Klogold in the fall. , before a completed edition of Casse-pipe in 2023.”I know it’s very different. But we don’t want to give up, and we are going to study the conditions for a reception that will allow us to republish and analyze these pamphlets. will be in the public domain in ten years. It would be a shame not to do a critical edition before,” he added. “In addition, these pamphlets will not accelerate anti-Semitism in France. I do not believe it. There is a whole historical, historiographical and Celinian material there to make a rich edition”, continued the publisher. “I know that I will have the agreement of the rights holders. The problem is the reception.”
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