Jean Basile

Basile, Jean

Jean Basile, née Bezroudnoff, novelist, literary critic, essayist and publisher (b at Paris 1932). After university studies in Paris, he immigrated to Montréal and joined Le Devoir in 1962 as a journalist, then as literary critic, before being named director of the literary section, a position he left in 1967. He helped found the magazine Mainmise (1970) and at the end of 1973 returned to Le Devoir as literary critic. Director of Éditions de l'Aurore (1976-77), he founded his own publishing house, Les Éditions Jean Basile (1979). In 1984 he returned to journalism with the magazine La Presse Plus.

In 1963 he published Lorenzo (1964), the first volume of a romanesque trilogy which he completed with Le Grand Khan (1967) and Les Voyages d'Irkoutsk (1970). He tried theatre with Joli Tambour (1966), a psycho-historical drama, and returned to the novel with Le Piano-trompette (1983). He also published L'Écriture radio-télé followed by Suggestions de Robert Choquette (1976), Coca et cocaine (1977), an essay on the use of drugs, La Culture du canabis (1979) and Iconostase pour Pier-Paolo Pasolini (1984).