Jacques Silberfeld

Jacques Silberfeld
Born	4 July 1915 The Hague, Netherlands
Died	17 January 1991(1991-01-17) (aged 75)
Pen name	Michel Chrétien, André Féron, Pierre-Jacques Cazaux, André Gilbert
Occupation	writer, journalist, publisher
Language	French

Jacques Silberfeld (known as Michel Chrétien; 4 July 1915 – 17 January 1991) was a French translator and man of letters.

Biography

Early life and family

Silberfeld was born on 4 July 1915 in The Hague, Netherlands. His grandfather, Lazare Silberfeld, served as a rabbi in Kraków, Poland), in the Kazimierz district, while his father, Ernest Silberfeld, worked as a diamond dealer in Antwerp, Belgium. He married the daughter of Armand Megglé. He is the grandfather of Magaajyia Silberfeld.

He passed the baccalaureate at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, began Medical studies, and met Alexandre Vialatte. On the advice of Fernand Mossé, he enrolled in English studies at the Sorbonne and wrote a thesis on The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.

Collaboration and resistance

During World War II, he joined the 21st Foreign Volunteers Marching Regiments, then, after being demobilized, joined the Libération-Sud resistance network and used several pseudonyms. Arrested multiple times, he escaped first from Stalag XVII-A in Austria, was imprisoned in Saint-Michel Prison (Toulouse), then escaped from the "ghost train" to Dachau during the summer of 1944.

Close to Raymond Lévy, Christian de Roquemaurel, Jean-Jacques Demorest, and Jean Dutourd, who dedicated his first novel, Au Bon Beurre, to him, he chose the pen name Michel Chrétien in homage to the character by Balzac: Michel Chrestien in The Secrets of the Princess of Cadignan and Lost Illusions.

He died on 17 January 1991 in Paris.

Career

He taught at the Journalist Training Center in Paris, then helped Bernard Pivot, publish his first novel with Calmann-Lévy.

A devoted follower of Pierre Boutang, assistant to Charles Maurras, a proeminent Vichy regime theorist, he was noted as a consistent literary critic for La Nation française and admitted to sharing the feeling of being a sheep.

Awards

• 1954: Vérité Prize

Publications

• Mind, Are You There, from Rabelais to Sacha Guitry, 1200 Funny Stories, 1957
• Humor, When You Grab Us: From Christopher Columbus to Winston Churchill, a Thousand Anglo-Saxon Funny Stories, 1959
• A Century of Anglo-American Humor, Michel Chrétien and Jacques Sternberg, preface by André Maurois, 1961
• Beasts Not Stupid or the Time of Animals, 1965
• The White Book of Black Humor, 1967

Translations

• Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson, 1940
• The 21 Balloons by William Pène Du Bois, 1947
• The Glory Maker by Guido Orlando, 1953
• Action Française by Eugen Weber, 1962
• Political Prisoner by Paul Ignotus, 1962
• Mao Tse-Tung: Emperor of the Blue Ants by Paloczi-Horvath, 1963
• Skinner by Hugh C. Rae
• My Name Is Aram by William Saroyan
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
• Double Star by Robert Heinlein
• Panic at the Bank: And Other Literary Skids by Stephen Leacock
• Christmas Time Tales by Henri Pourrat
• On Revolution by Hannah Arendt, 1985
• Black Radio Operation: Black Boomerang by Sefton Delmer
• To Men, the Stars: They Shall Have Stars by James Blish
• The Scottish Vampire by Hugh Crawford Rae
• Living Reptiles of the World by Karl P. Schmidt and Robert F. Inger
• Like Rats: The Wax Boom by George G. Mandel
• Earth, My Friend by Peter Townsend
• Châtelain in Poland: Memoirs of Count Potocki, Master of Lancut by Alfred Potocki