Edmond Jabès

The son of a prominent Jewish family in Egypt going back to the 19th century, he was born and brought up in Cairo where he received a classical French education.

From the 1930s on, he was active in Cairo's artistic and literary avant-garde culture, while also nurturing relationships with poets and publishers in France.

There he was welcomed by the literary community as a Surrealist-influenced poet, but a confrontation with French anti-semitism and the shadow of the Shoah prompted him to make a radical change in his writing, resulting in the multi-volume "Book of Questions."

His work after exile from Egypt reflects a consciousness deeply troubled by the brutal reality of Auschwitz.

Jabès's cremation ceremony took place at Père Lachaise Cemetery a few days after his death; he was the victim of a heart attack in his apartment on the rue de l'Épée-de-Bois, dying at age 78.