Colinet, Paul 1898-1957

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COLINET, Paul 1898-1957

PERSONAL: Born 1898, in Arquennes, Belgium; died 1957.

CAREER: Poet.

WRITINGS:

Les histoires de la lampe, Ca Ira (Deurne-Anvers, Belgium), 1942.

La nuit blanche: fiesta, Fontaine (Paris, France), 1945.

La manivelle du château, G. Houyoux (Brussels, Belgium), 1954.

Paul Colinet: Selected Prose Poems, translated by Rochelle Ratner, Clown War (Brooklyn, NY), 1975.

Oeuvres, Lebeer Hossmann (Brussels, Belgium), 1980.

Poems anthologized in New Directions in Prose and Poetry, 1953.

SIDELIGHTS: Belgian poet and author Paul Colinet had only published two collections of his poetry, Les histoires de la lampe and La manivelle du château, when he died in 1957. Born in 1898 in Arquennes, Belgium, Colinet was part of his country's surrealist movement. He was both influential and on friendly terms with others in the movement, including the well-known painter, René Magritte.

Since his death, Colinet's works have been translated into several other languages, including English. In 1975, Rochelle Ratner translated a number of his poems and published them in a collection titled Paul Colinet: Selected Prose Poems. The book contains more than thirty of Colinet's poems, including "Fable," "The Clouds," "The Winter Cuckoo," "The Misfortune," "The Absence of Color," and "Thin Man's Game." The poem "Thin Man's Game" was also translated by Paul Bowles and appeared in the 1953 collection New Directions in Prose and Poetry.