Jean Daive


Jean Daive is a French poet and translator. He is the author of novels, collections of poetry and has translated work by Paul Celan and Robert Creeley among others.
He has edited encyclopedias, worked as a radio journalist and producer with France Culture, and has edited three magazines: fragment, fig., and FIN. His first book, Décimale blanche was translated into German by Paul Celan, and into English by Cid Corman.

Life and work

Jean Daive was born in Bon-Secours, a section of the city of Péruwelz located in Wallonia, a predominantly French speaking southern region of Belgium and part of the province of Hainaut. Having been an encyclopedist for seventeen years, he worked on various radio programs for France Culture from 1975 until 2009.
Publishing since the 1960s and today known as one of the important French avant-garde poets, Daive's work is an investigation alternating between poetry, narration and reflective prose. He has published several interrelated volumes, including a sequence with the general title Narration d'équilibre and the prose series, La Condition d'infini.
According to Peter France, Daive's tense, elliptical poems explore the difficulties of existence in an enigmatic world.
Also a photographer, Daive chairs the Centre international de poésie de Marseille.

Publications

;In English
;Poetry
;Novels and récits
;Other texts
;Translations
;Interviews