Klossowski, Pierre

(1905-2001)

   writer, artist

   Born in paris, pierre Klossowski was the brother of the painter balthus. A talented translator (particularly of Suetonius and Virgil, but also of Holder-lin in collaboration with pierre-jean jouve), he was an essayist too (Sade mon prochain, 1974; Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux, 1969). Klossowski composed romantic novels describing malaise and anguish (La Vocation suspendu, 1950) and a hermetic novel in which the struggle between two opposing currents of the Catholic faith masks an autobiographical work. The sexual adventures of Roberte, Octave her husband, and her nephew Antoine, published in the trilogy Les Lois de l'hopitalité (La Révocation de l'édit de Nantes, 1959; Roberte ce soir, 1953; Le Souffleur, 1960) present visions in which the real and the imaginary are combined. In his work, Klossowski tried to overcome forbidden barriers and taboos. After Le Bain de Diane (1956), an erotic variation on the myth of Acteon, and Le Bapomet (1956), a complex work marked by the perverse, he turned to newer themes, combining the erotic with the mystical.