#semprun

Jaime Semprun was one of the founders of the ENCYCLOPEDIE DES NUISANCES. He was the son of Jorge Semprun (writer, film scenarist, Spanish minister of culture, survivor of the nazi concentration camps.)  And Jaime Semprun’s mother was the playwright Loleh Belon.

He was the author of La guerre Sociale au Portugal written after the fall of the CAETANO proto-fascist government in that country. A few years later Jaime Semprun and some friends of his set up the EDN (Encyclopedie des Nuisances). They were going to look a society with a fresh eye. And for a while they did, Debord even contributed two anonymous articles. Then things got sticky with Debord. As for the EDN they embarked on an anti-industrial course. That brought them to publish Ted Kacyznski’s ghastly Unabomber  text. That was not to the credit of the EDN. It seems they never recovered from that move. Life is like chess, one false move and things get nasty.

The EDN’s mistake is that they cling on to this day to some sort of class struggle idea. They could not understandf the complexity of modern capitalism. But to be fair to Semprun, as reported in this week’s LE CANARD ENCHAINE (11 August 2010),  on one list he had written names of authors that the EDN was pleased not to publish : Alain Badiou, Georgio Agamben, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler. So Jaime was not completely far gone. He had retained some critical faculties.

I personally never met him, but I had known some of his colleagues. One of them is still an ardent anti-industrial militant. Some do not improve with age, unlike a good wine. Jaime Semprun was probably someone you could call part of the loyal opposition. Even if he did not agree with you, he would defend you if someone did something wrong against you. As was the case when Anselm JAPPE’S book Les Aventures de la marchandise -pour une nouvelle critique de la valeur-, was sabotaged by J. Gayrault who had been paid to reread the French MSS done by Jappe. That Semprun could not stomach.

written on the 12 of August 2010 by M. Prigent.

Jaime Semprún was born in Spain and was the son of the writer Jorge Semprún and the actor Loleh Bellon, but lived most of his life in France. He was a radical essayist, a translator and a French publisher.

In the 70s and 80s he was a friend of Guy Debord, a founder of the Situationist International. In 1975 he wrote a book about the Portuguese revolution and in 1976 another book about recuperation illustrated with many examples. His book on the Nuclearisation of the World dealt with nuclear energy.

Alter 1984 he was one of the prime movers in the review Encyclopédie des Nuisances which became a publishing house in 1991. He translated George Orwell’s essays and letters into French in 4 volumes as well as publishing many other authors.

His Bibliography in French includes; • La Guerre Sociale au Portugal, Champ Libre, Paris, 1975. • Précis de récupération, illustré de nombreux exemples tirés de l'histoire récente, Champ Libre, 1976. • La Nucléarisation du monde, Éditions de l'Assommoir, 1980 ; Éditions Gérard Lebovici/Champ Libre, 1986 reedited after Chernóbil, Éditions Ivrea, 2008. ISBN 2-85184-172-6 • Dialogues sur l'achèvement des temps modernes, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, Paris, 1993, 143 p. ISBN 2-910386-00-7 • L'abîme se repeuple, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, Paris, 1997, 85 p. ISBN 2-910386-06-6 • Encyclopédie des Nuisances, Remarques sur l'agriculture génétiquement modifiée et la dégradation des espèces, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, Paris, 1999. ISBN 2-910386-09-0. (Some thoughts on Genetically modified agricultura and the decline of the species) • Apologie pour l'insurrection algérienne, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, 2001. ISBN 2-910386-17-1 • Défense et illustration de la novlangue française, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, 2005. ISBN 2-910386-22-8 • Catastrophisme, administration du désastre et soumission durable, Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, 2008, 136 p. (con René Riesel). ISBN 978-2-910386-28-3 • Discours préliminaire de l'Encyclopédie des nuisances (novembre 1984), Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances, 2009. ISBN 2-910386-30-6 • Éditions Champ Libre, Correspondance, vol. 1, éditions Champ Libre, Paris, 1978. Some letters by Jaime Semprún. • Guy Debord, Correspondance, volumes 5 y 6, Fayard, Paris, 2005 y 2007. Letters from Guy Debord to Jaime Semprún in these two volumes.

There is an interesting summary of his work by Loren Goldner from 2001 at http://ecritscorsaires.free.fr/article.php3.5.html