Editing René Daumal

{{short description|French poet and novelist}}
{{More citations needed|date=July 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = René Daumal
| image       = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing [[brackets]] -->
| alt         = 
| caption     = 
| birth_name  = 
| birth_date  = {{Birth date|df=yes|1908|03|16}} 
| birth_place = [[Boulzicourt]], [[Ardennes (département)|Ardennes]], France
| death_date  = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1944|05|21|1908|03|16}}
| death_place = Paris, France
| nationality = French
| other_names = 
| occupation  = Para-[[surrealist]] writer, [[poet]]
| known_for   = ''[[Mount Analogue]]'' (1952)
|signature=Signature René Daumal.jpg
}}

'''René Daumal'''  ({{IPA|fr|domal|lang}}; 16 March 1908 – 21 May 1944) was a French [[spirituality|spiritual]] para-[[surrealist]] writer, [[critic]] and [[poet]], best known for his posthumously published novel ''[[Mount Analogue]]'' (1952) as well as for being an early, outspoken practitioner of [[pataphysics]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Daumal |first=René |author-link=René Daumal |date=2012 |title=Pataphysical Essays}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Boulzicourt (Ardennes) maison natale René Daumal.JPG|thumb|220px|House in [[Boulzicourt]], [[Ardennes (département)|Ardennes]], where Daumal was born]]
[[File:Boulzicourt (Ardennes) plaque maison natale René Daumal.JPG|thumb|160px|Close of the plaque, outside the house]]
Daumal was born in [[Boulzicourt]], [[Ardennes (département)|Ardennes]], France.<ref name="Flower">{{cite book |last1=Flower |first1=John |title=Historical dictionary of French literature |date=2013 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=9780810879454 |page=163 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kd6tAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163 |chapter=Daumal, René (1908–1944)}}</ref> In his late teens his [[avant-garde]] poetry was published in France's leading journals.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2019-09-29 |title=René Daumal |url=https://gurdjieffclub.com/en/rene-daumal/ |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=Gurdjieff Club |language=en-US}}</ref> As an adolescent, Daumal co-founded the art group ''Les Phrères Simplistes'' with the poets [[Roger Gilbert-Lecomte]] and [[Roger Vailland]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bauduin|first1=Tessel M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-crDwAAQBAJ&q=Daumal+surrealism&pg=PT82|title=Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvellous|last2=Ferentinou|first2=Victoria|last3=Zamani|first3=Daniel|date=2017-10-16|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-351-37902-1|language=en}}</ref> They would later co-found the literary journal ''Le Grand Jeu'', which published three issues between 1928 and 1930.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Gilbert-Lecomte|first=Roger|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pcdcAAAAMAAJ&q=Daumal|title=Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte|date=1991|publisher=Station Hill Press|isbn=978-0-88268-129-0|language=en}}</ref> Although courted by [[André Breton]], the journal was founded as a counter to [[Surrealism]] and [[Dada]];<ref>{{Cite web |title=René Daumal |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020747.Ren_Daumal |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref> the Surrealists reacted to its publication with some hostility.<ref name=":0" />

He is best known in the English-speaking world for two novels: ''[[A Night of Serious Drinking]]'', and the [[allegorical]] novel ''[[Mount Analogue|Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing]]'', both based upon his friendship with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of [[G. I. Gurdjieff]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Gurdjieff Legacy Foundation Archives |url=https://gurdjiefflegacy.org/archives/alexanderdesalzmann.htm |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=gurdjiefflegacy.org}}</ref>

Daumal was [[autodidacticism|self-taught]] in the [[Sanskrit]] language and translated some of the [[Tripitaka]] [[Buddhist]] canon into the French language, as well as translating the literature of the Japanese [[Zen]] scholar [[D.T. Suzuki]] into French.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-09-29 |title=René Daumal |url=https://gurdjieffclub.com/en/rene-daumal/ |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=Gurdjieff Club |language=en-US}}</ref>

He married the Bulgarian émigré Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after Daumal's death, she married the landscape architect [[Russell Page]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=René Daumal |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020747.Ren_Daumal |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref>

==Death==
Daumal's sudden and premature death from [[tuberculosis]] on 21 May 1944 in [[Paris]] may have been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs and psychoactive chemicals, including [[carbon tetrachloride]]. He died leaving his novel ''Mount Analogue'' unfinished, having worked on it until the day of his death.<ref name=":1" />

He is buried at [[Cimetière parisien de Pantin]] in [[Pantin]], a municipality just outside Paris.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

==Legacy==
The motion picture [[The Holy Mountain (1973 film)|''The Holy Mountain'']] by [[Alejandro Jodorowsky]] is based largely on Daumal's ''Mount Analogue''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=René Daumal |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020747.Ren_Daumal |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

===Works by René Daumal in English translation===
*''Le Contre-Ciel (Le contre-ciel)'', Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2005.
*''Le Contre-Ciel: The Anti-Heaven, Part One'', Black River Falls, Wisconsin, 2002. transl. and with an introduction by Jordan Jones.
*''Le Contre-Ciel: The Anti-Heaven, Parts Two and Three'', Black River Falls, Wisconsin, 2003. transl. Jordan Jones.
*''A Fundamental Experiment'', New York / Madras: Hanuman Books, 1987; first published: René Daumal, "A Fundamental Experiment", [[X (magazine)|X magazine]], Vol. I, No. I (November 1959).
*''The Lie of the Truth and Other Parables from the Way of Liberation'', New York / Madras: Hanuman Books, 1989.
*''[[Mount Analogue]] (Le mont analogue)'', Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2004.
*''Mugle and the Silk (Mugle; La soie)'', New York, [[Edwin Mellen Press]], 1997.
*''[[A Night of Serious Drinking]] (La grande beuverie)'', Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2003.
*''[[Pataphysical Essays]]'', Cambridge: Wakefield Press, 2012.
*''The Powers of the Word (1927–1943) (Les pouvoirs de la parole)'', San Francisco: City Lights, 1991.
*'Rasa or Knowledge of the Self' Essays on Indian Aesthetics and Selected Sanskrit Studies. New York: New Directions, 1982.* ed. Claudio Rugafiori, transl. Louise Landes Levi, Repr. Kathamndu, Nepal, Shivastan, 2002 & 2006 (each edition 333 copies).
*''You've Always Been Wrong (Tu t'es toujours trompé)'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. transl. Thomas Vosteen.
*''René Daumal, Letters on the Search for Awakening, 1930–1944'', Toronto: Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2010. transl. Gabriela Ansari and Roger Lipsey, with an introduction by Roger Lipsey.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Phil Powrie, ''René Daumal and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte: A bibliography'', London: Grant & Cutler, 1988.
*Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=HIKWlqTKGgcC&q=Ren%C3%A9+Daumal René Daumal: The Life and Work of a Mystic Guide]'', New York: Suny Press, 1999.

== External links ==
{{commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://www.gurdjieff.org/daumal.htm René Daumal Works] Gurdjeiff International Review
*[http://www.gurdjieff.org/daumal1.htm ''Holy War''] 
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/rene-daumal/ ''Skin of Light'' and ''Last Letter to his Wife'']
*[http://www.deaddrunkdublin.com/poems/rene_daumal/poetry_black_poetry_white.html '' Poetry Black Poetry White'']

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daumal, Rene}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1944 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Ardennes (department)]]
[[Category:20th-century deaths from tuberculosis]]
[[Category:French surrealist writers]]
[[Category:Tuberculosis deaths in France]]
[[Category:Pataphysicians]]
[[Category:Translators to French]]
[[Category:20th-century French translators]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French poets]]
[[Category:French male poets]]
[[Category:French male novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French male writers]]
[[Category:French male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Students of George Gurdjieff]]