Alain Borer (born November 6, 1949, in Luxeuil-les-Bains, France1) is a French poet, travel writer, novelist, playwright, art critic, essayist, and specialist of the life and works of Arthur Rimbaud.

He received his Middle and High School education at the Institut Florimont in Geneva, Switzerland; there he founded and directed the student journal Le Bateau Ivre.

The following year, in Paris, where he pursued his studies in the humanities at the “khâgne” section of the Lycée Henri-IV, he entered in contact with writer and photographer Denis Roche and the poets of the avant-garde literary magazine Tel Quel.3 They would become the subject of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris VII, written under the direction of Julia Kristeva.4 In 1976, he travelled to Ethiopia, in the footsteps of Arthur Rimbaud, in preparation of the film Le Voleur de feu by Charles Brabant, with Léo Ferré, diffused on French television (TF1) in 1978.5 In the same year, he directed for Radio France the audiotapes collection Rimbaud, read by Laurent Terzieff.6 Working as a limousine driver in order to pay for his studies, he publishes Souvenirs d’un chauffeur de maître (Memories of a Master Chauffeur) in Les Temps Modernes, May 1978.

In 1979 he is appointed at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours as teacher of art theory; among his colleagues are the painters Pierre Antoniucci, Christian Henry, the sculptor Peter Briggs, etc.

; among the students who studied with him Bernard Calet, Richard Fauguet, Françoise Manceau, Laurent Mauvignier, François Pagé, and Ben l’Oncle Soul.7 The name of Alain Borer is associated with that of Arthur Rimbaud, to whom he has devoted thirty years of his life, at least.

He traveled to all the places on the map of what he calls “Rimbaldia” -- from Charleville to Java, from Marseille to London to Stockholm, from Harderwijk to Harar, and from Cyprus to Yemen.

The critic, for instance, of the newspaper Le Monde: “A scrupulous reader, an all-knowing biographer, a lively spirit, [Borer's] erudition is effervescent, his pen sharp like a lightning bolt, and similarly to his model, his style is one of no-nonsense.

Between many other titles, he publishes in 2003 a novel, Koba (Editions Seuil), which will win the Joseph-Kessel Prize in 2003; in 2007, a play, Icare (Editions Seuil), winning the Apollinaire Award in 200819; in 1994, an essay on Joseph Beuys (Catalog of the Centre Pompidou).20 He continues to write poems, in three different registers (in lyrical cosmic lines, in "pataphysical" books, and in what he calls “noems”).21 After a first François Coupé, Alain Borer has made “book-objects”, collages, and numerous books in collaboration with artists (for example, on Tuareg jewelry with Kaïdin), which he signs off under the pen name of “Jaseur Boreal.” One exhibition of his photographs, La Sanglinière, was presented in the Château de Tours in April 2007.

His work, often confidential and dispersed in countless journals, cannot yet be overseen in its totality, but his writing, always incandescent and inspired, signifies with erudition and passion, fantasy and humor, profound progress and innovation.”22 A travel writer and a signatory of the Littérature-Monde (World-Literature) manifesto of Saint-Malo23, Alain Borer undertakes in 2005 -- at the invitation of Edouard Glissant -- a trip in the South Pacific Ocean (from the Gambier Islands to the archipelago of the Tuamotu).24 It inspired him to the writing of Le ciel & la carte, carnet de voyage dans les mers du Sud à bord de La Boudeuse (The Sky and the Map, the Logbook of a Journey in the South Seas on Board of the Boudeuse [not translated in English]).

A work of 2007, Icare & and I don't, “a metaphysical vaudeville”, illustrates this rare alliance of poetry and wit, of lightness and depth, whose tone should give life to works of “allegro serioso” – a program about which Roland Barthes said: “With you, the art of living and the art of writing merge.” A 2008 catalogue [G. Tran Din Mahe] listed approximately one thousand publications by one hundred publishers.

A major part of his work appears scattered in prefaces, literary essays in journals,26 in writings about art and artists in catalogues (Pierre Antoniucci, Barry Flanagan, Vivien Isnard, Henri Maccheroni, Volti ...), in poems in books and magazines, and also in radio shows on France Culture (Germain Nouveau, Agenda Dada, Corrida Dada ...).27 In 1995, he took part in the club "Phares et Balises" of Regis Debray.

In his column in Sept Info, the novelist Olivier Weber stated: “A bold publication, learned, savant, salutary now that so many languages are in peril, or disintegrate, which comes to the same.”35 It was critically reviewed in a counter-pamphlet, Les linguistes atterrées.36

seminar of Cerisy, Gourdon, Dominique Bedou et Jean Touzot publishers, 1986 • Bérénice, spécial Rimbaud, Rome, 1980 • Bouts rimés d'Arthur Rimbaud, Muro Torto, Rome, Villa Medicis, 1980 Essays on Art • Christian Jaccard, l'Art en fusion, catalogue exposition Christian Jaccard, une collection, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 2023 • Villeglé l'anarchiviste, Editions Gallimard, 2020 • Martin Muller or the Talking Picture, Arkansas Art Center, 2017 • Chambord, Monum, 2006 • Hugo Pratt - Ethiopie, la trace du scorpion, Casterman, 2005 • La coupabilité de Saint Martin : La légende de saint Martin au XIXe, Peintures et dessins, Paris et Tours, Somogy Editions d'art, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 1997 • Le rêve du Chacmol, essai sur Olivier Seguin, Société d'édition du Val de Loire, 1995 • Déploration de Joseph Beuys, éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1994; Bibliothèque des arts, Lausanne, 2001; expanded reissue by Editions L'Atelier contemporain, 2021 • Albrecht Dürer, L'Oeuvre graphique, H.& Bouret, 1980; reissued by Booking International, 1994 • Aleph ou le bœuf sous la langue, essai sur Georges Badin, Shakespeare & Cie, Paris, 1976 • Dürer, Le Burin du graveur, Editions Hubschmidt & Bouret, 1974; reprinted by Editions Booking International, 1994; expanded reissue by Editions L'Atelier contemporain, 2021 • Le Reste à voir.

• Venusberg, preceded by a dream of Michel Butor, cover design by Jean-Luc Parant, lino by Alain Gauvin, Béthune, Ecbolade 1976; reissued in 1983, drawings by Vivien Isnard • Alexandrins oraux, fortuits et privés, Ed.

Encres vives, 1975; expanded reissue with lithography by Erro, Graphium, Montpellier, 1980 • Bestiaire, La Louvière (Belgique), Daily-Bul, coll.

Rimbaud texts read by Laurent Terzieff, audio cassettes Radio France, 1978 et 1989 • Paul Verlaine, presented by Alain Borer.

↑ Raphaël Sorin, « Alain Borer à la poursuite de Rimbaud », Le Monde des livres, November 30, 1984 (read on line [archive]) 14.

↑ Muriel Steinmetz, « "Ce qui frappe chez Rimbaud, c'est la continuité des ruptures" », L'Humanité, June 26-27-28, 2015, p.19 17.

↑ Thomas Mahler et Saïd Mahrane, « Borer: "Notre fabrique de mots francophones est en panne" », Le Point, October 2017, p. 1-5 31.

↑ « Alain Borer rend hommage à la langue française dans "Speak White" chez Galli-mard [archive] » (consulted June 26, 2023) 33.