Background

Robert Pinget was born on July 19, 1919, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Education

Robert Pinget received a law degree from the University of Geneva.

Career

Early in his career, Robert Pinget studied and practiced law for a year. However, his love of the arts propelled him to change pursuits. In 1946, he left Switzerland for France and settled down in Paris. He took part in several exhibitions as a painter for a time and collected a series of jobs, including living on an Israeli kibbutz and being part of a Yugoslavian crew building a railroad. He taught French for English-speaking people as well.

While in the capital of France, Pinget was also compelled to write. He self-published his first book of short stories, ‘Entre Fantoine el Agapa’, in 1950. The volume was followed by other novels, including ‘Mahu ou le matériau’ (Mahu or the Material), Baga, ‘Le Fiston’ (No Answer), ‘Passacaille’ (Recurrent Melody: Passacaille), ‘L’Inquisitoire’ (The Interrogation), and others.

Robert Pinget was also applied his talent writing plays that were collected in several volumes, the first of which ‘Lettre morte’ of 1959 was followed by a radio script ‘La Manivelle’. The latter was translated by his friend and fellow author Samuel Beckett as ‘The Old Tune’. In his turn, the writer translated Beckett’s ‘All That Fall’ into French like ‘Tous ceux qui tombent’. In 1987, several of Pinget’s plays were presented at the Avignon Drama Festival.

The last Pinget’s publication while alive became a 1997 volume ‘Tâches d'encre’ (Traces of Ink).

Achievements

• Robert Pinget is considered as one of the distinguished and beloved authors who has written in French since the middle of the 1940s.
  
  Pinget received a Prize from French Critics for his 1961 volume ‘The Interrogation’, the Femina Prize for ‘Someone’ four years later, and the Grand Prix National des Lettres in 1987.

Works

More photos

• book

  • That Voice

    (A story of death and disintegration in a French village i...)

    1975
  • Mahu or the Material

    (A 1966 English translation of a novel initially published...)

    1956
  • Between Fantoine and Agapa

    (A 1982 English translation of a book initially published ...)

    1951
  • Graal Flibuste

    (A 2015 English translation of a book initially published ...)

    1956
  • Monsieur Levert

    (A 1961 English translation of a book initially published ...)

    1959
  • The Inquisitory

    (A 1982 English translation of a book initially published ...)

    1962
  • Monsieur Songe

    (An English translation of Pinget's 1982 French volume by ...)

    1982
  • Baga

    (An English translation of a book initially published in F...)

    1958
  • The Libera Me Domine

    (An English translation of a book initially published in F...)

    1968
  • Theo or the New Era

    (An English translation of Pinget's 1991 by Barbara Wright.)

    1991

Views

Quotations: "It seems to me that when one is attracted by a writer, it is not his biography that is of interest. The questions to the writer which have nothing or little to do with his work always surprise me. All my life is in writing. I live in my books…"

Personality

Robert Pinget was a modest person who didn’t like publicity.

Connections

Friend:

Samuel Beckett