Row erupts in France over plans to publish revered novelist’s anti-Semitic wartime pamphlets
French publishing house Gallimard has insisted it will go ahead with the publication of the 1,000-page collection of 1930s pamphlets by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, who called for the extermination of Jews
The planned publication of anti-Semitic pamphlets written by a revered novelist has sparked a fierce row in France, with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe weighing in on the debate in favour of their release.
Three racist 1930s texts by Louis-Ferdinand Celine are set to appear in a volume by leading French publishing house Gallimard in May, sparking angry calls for the book to be banned.
Philippe said Sunday he thought the pamphlets should be published, but only alongside a carefully composed critical and contextual commentary.
“I am not afraid of these pamphlets’ publication, but they must be thoughtfully accompanied,” the prime minister said in an interview with French weekly the Journal du Dimanche.
“There are very good reasons to detest the man himself, but you cannot deny the writer’s central position in French literature.”
Celine, best known for his 1932 novel Journey to the End of the Night, is regarded as one of France’s most prominent – and controversial – modern novelists.
But his reputation has been tarnished by his rabid, anti-Semitic, pro-Hitler wartime pamphlets.