In occupied Belgium during World War II, Paul de Man (1919-1983)
wrote music, lecture, and exhibition reviews, a regular book
column, interviews, and articles on cultural politics for the
Brussels daily newspaper "Le Soir," From December 1940 until he
resigned in November 1942, de Man contributed almost 200 articles
to this and another newspaper, both then controlled by Nazi
sympathizers and vocal advocates of the "new order."
Later to become one of the most respected and influential literary
theorists in America, de Man, then 21 and 22 years old, wrote
primarily as the chief literary critic for "Le Soir," His weekly
column reviewed the latest novels and poetry from Belgium, France,
Germany, and England. De Man commented extensively on major
propaganda expositions, and interviewed leading writers and
cultural figures, including Paul Valery and the future Vichy
Education minister Abel Bonnard.
The political extremes of de Man's wartime writing are marked by
two articles. His single anti-Semitic article, "Les Juifs dans la
litterature actuelle" (4 March 1941), acquiesces in the deportation
of Jews to "a Jewish colony isolated from Europe." But de Man later
argued in defense of a Resistance-linked journal ("A propos de la
revue "Messages, "" 14 July 1942) against the "totalitarian"
censors' "unconsidered attacks."
This volume reprints in facsimile all of de Man's articles in "Le
Soir" as well as three articles he wrote prior to the occupation in
1940 as editor of the liberal "Cahiers du Libre Examen." It also
includes English translations of the ten articles written in
Flemmish for the Antwerp paper "Het Vlaamsche Land," in
March-October 1942. The collection appears underthe auspices of the
"Oxford Literary Review," England's leading theoretical journal for
over a decade.
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