Editing Gherasim Luca

{{Short description|Romanian writer}}
{{more citations needed|date=June 2009}}
'''Gherasim Luca''' ({{IPA|ro|geraˈsim ˈluka}}; 23 July 1913 – 9 February 1994) was a Romanian [[Surrealism|surrealist]] [[theorist]] and [[poet]]. Born '''Salman Locker''' in [[Romania]] and also known as '''Costea Sar''', and '''Petre Malcoci''', he became an [[apatrid]] after leaving Romania in 1952.

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2022}}
== Biography ==

Born in [[Bucharest]] the son of [[Jew]]ish tailor Berl Locker (died 1914), he spoke [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[German language|German]], and [[French language|French]]. During 1938, he traveled frequently to [[Paris]] where he was introduced to surrealists. [[World War II]] and the official [[antisemitism]] in Romania forced him into local [[exile]]. During the pre-[[Communist Romania|Communist]] period of Romanian independence, he founded a surrealist artists group with [[Gellu Naum]], Paul Păun, Virgil Teodorescu and [[Dolfi Trost]].

His first publications, including poems in French followed. He was the inventor of [[cubomania]] and, in 1945 with Dolfi Trost, authored "[[Dialectique de la dialectique|Dialectic of Dialectic]]", a [[manifesto]] of the surrealist movement [[Surautomatism]]. Harassed in Romania and caught while trying to flee the country, he left Romania in 1952, and moved to Paris through [[Israel]].

There he worked among others with [[Jean Arp]], [[Paul Celan]], François Di Dio and [[Max Ernst]], producing numerous [[collage]]s, drawings, objects, and text-installations. From 1967, his reading sessions took him to [[Stockholm]], [[Oslo]], [[Geneva]], [[New York City]], and [[San Francisco]]. The 1988 TV-portrait by Raoul Sanglas, ''Comment s'en sortir sans sortir'', made him famous for a larger readership.

At the end of the 1980s, Luca's residence building in Montmartre was deemed insalubrious by the French authorities. In order to be relocated to another building, he had to justify his citizenship. As he had been without one ever since leaving Romania, he acquired French citizenship by marrying his long time partner.    

On 9 February 1994, at the age of 80, he committed suicide by jumping into the [[Seine]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_01/3558 |title=The Passive Vampire |last=Gammel |first=Irene |work=Bookforum |accessdate=13 June 2009}}</ref>

== Selected works ==

Luca initially wrote most of his poetic works in his native Romanian. Two collections of these, ''Inventatorul Iubirii'' and ''Un lup văzut printr-o lupă,'' published in Bucharest in 1945, were translated into English (''The Inventor of Love and Other Works'') by Julian and Laura Semilian and published by Black Widow Press in 2009.

With the authorisation of éditions Corti, a forthcoming chapbook of his poems translated by [[Fiona Sze-Lorrain]] will be featured in "Poetry International", Issue no. 15, Spring 2010.
* ''Un loup à travers une loupe'', Bucharest, 1942. Poems in prose, initially published in Romanian. Later translated into French by Gherasim Luca. Apart from ''Ce Château Pressenti'', they remained unpublished in French until 1998, Éditions José Corti
* ''Quantitativement aimée'', Éditions de l'Oubli, Bucharest, 1944
* ''Le Vampire passif'', Éditions de l'Oubli, Bucharest 1945
* ''[[Dialectique de la dialectique]]'', together with Dolfi Trost, Éditions surréalistes, Bucharest, 1945
* ''Les Orgies des Quanta'', Éditions de l'Oubli, Bucharest 1946
* ''Amphitrite, Éditions de l’Infra-noir'', Bucharest 1945
* ''Le Secret du vide et du plein'', Éditions de l'Oubli, Bucharest 1947
* ''Héros-Limite'', Le Soleil Noir, Paris 1953 with an engraving and three drawings
* ''Ce Château Pressenti'', Méconnaissance, Paris 1958, with [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]] and engraving by [[Victor Brauner]]. This poem is part of ''Un loup à travers une loupe''
* ''La Clef'', Poème-Tract, 1960, Paris
* ''L'Extrême-Occidentale'', Éditions Mayer, [[Lausanne]] 1961 with 7 engravings by Jean Arp, Brauner, Max Ernst, Jacques Hérold, [[Wifredo Lam]], [[Roberto Matta]], [[Dorothea Tanning]]
* ''La Lettre'', no editor mentioned, Paris, 1960
* ''Le Sorcier noir'', with Jacques Hérold, Paris 1996
* ''Sept slogans ontophoniques'', Brunidor, Paris 1963 with engravings by Augustin Fernandez, Enrique Zanartu, [[Gisèle Celan-Lestrange]], Jacques Hérold.
* ''Poésie élémentaire'', Éditions Brunidor, [[Vaduz]], [[Liechtenstein]], 1966
* ''Apostroph'Apocalypse'', Éditions Upiglio, [[Milan]] 1967 with fourteen engravings by Wifredo Lam
* ''Sisyphe Géomètre'', Éditions Givaudan, Paris, 1967 Book-sculpture designed by Piotr Kowalski
* ''Droit de regard sur les idées'', Brunidor, Paris, 1967
* ''Déférés devant un tribunal d'exception'', no editor mentioned, Paris, 1968.
* ''Dé-Monologue'', Brunidor, Paris, 1969 with two engravings by Micheline Catty
* ''La Fin du monde'', Éditions Petitthory, Paris 1969 with frontispiece by Micheline Catty and five drawings by Ghérasim Luca
* ''Le Tourbillon qui repose'', Critique et Histoire, 1973
* ''Le Chant de la carpe'', Le Soleil Noir, Paris, 1973 with sonogram and sculpture by Kowalski
* ''Présence de l'imperceptible'', Franz Jacob, Châtelet; with no date of publication
* ''Paralipomènes'', Le Soleil Noir, Paris 1976 with a cubomania by Luca
* ''Théâtre de Bouche'', Criapl'e, Paris, 1984 with an engraving and nine drawings by Micheline Catty.
* ''Satyres et Satrape'', Éditions de la Crem, Barlfeur, 1987
* ''Le Cri'', Éditions Au fil de l'encre, Paris, 1995

Others:
* ''La proie s'ombre''
* ''La voici la voie silanxieuse''
* ''Levée d'écrou'', Éditions José Corti, 2003

In English translation:
* ''The Passive Vampire'', Twisted Spoon, 2009. Tr. by Krzysztof Fijalkowski.
* ''The Inventor of Love & Other Works'', Black Widow Press, 2009. Tr. by Laura and Julian Semilian.
* ''Self-Shadowing Prey'', New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2012. Translation and introduction by Mary Ann Caws.
* ''Something is Still Present and Isn't, of What's Gone''. A bilingual anthology of avant-garde and avant-garde inspired Rumanian poetry, Aracne editrice, 2018.  Edited and translated by Victor Pambuccian.

In Spanish translation: 
*  ''La zozobra de la lengua'', El Desvelo Ediciones, Santander, 2018, 368 p. {{ISBN|978-84-948306-3-1}} (translation in Spanish of French and Romanian poems by Catalina Iliescu, Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero, Jesús García Rodríguez y Eugenio Castro; introductory study by Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero).
*  ''Héroe límite'', añosluz editora, Buenos Aires, 2022. Tr. by Mariano Fiszman.

== Filmography ==
* ''Comment s'en sortir sans sortir'' (1988), directed by Raoul Sangla, in which Gherasim Luca recites eight of his poems in a very sober setting.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140711235506/http://contramundum.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HYP-Luca-full_issue-2013.pdf Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics]'', Vol. VII, No. 3 (October 2013). Special issue on Luca with articles in English & French and texts by Luca.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040802231603/http://www.jose-corti.fr/auteursfrancais/luca.html Page about Gherasim Luca in French]
* [http://dtext.com/hache/passion.html "Passionnément", poem and audio document of the poet's performance] (in French, authorized by copyright holder)
* [http://dtext.com/hache/metaphysique.html "Quart d'heure de culture métaphysique", poem and audio document of the poet's performance] (in French, authorized by copyright holder)
* English translation of some of his poems:
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222104940/http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/books/texts/lucas-dream.html |date=February 22, 2007 |title=Dream in Action, from ''Héros-Limite'' }}
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060301214724/http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/books/texts/lucas-herme.html |date=March 1, 2006 |title=Hermetically Open, from ''Héros-Limite'' }}
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060301214738/http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/books/texts/lucas-meta.html |date=March 1, 2006 |title=15-minute metaphysical, from Quart d'heure de culture métaphysique, ''Le Chant de la Carpe'' }}
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222104940/http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/books/texts/lucas-para.html |date=February 22, 2007 |title=Embody, from Prendre Corps, ''Paralipomènes'' }}
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060301214731/http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/books/texts/lucas-made.html |date=March 1, 2006 |title=Madeleine, from ''La proie s'ombre'' }}
* Dominique Carlat: ''Ghérasim Luca l'intempestif''

{{Romanian modernist literature in World War II}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Luca, Gherasim}}
[[Category:Romanian collage artists]]
[[Category:20th-century Romanian poets]]
[[Category:Romanian male poets]]
[[Category:Romanian surrealist writers]]
[[Category:Romanian writers in French]]
[[Category:Jewish Romanian artists]]
[[Category:Jewish poets]]
[[Category:Writers from Bucharest]]
[[Category:Jewish Romanian writers]]
[[Category:Romanian emigrants to France]]
[[Category:Suicides by drowning in France]]
[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:1994 suicides]]
[[Category:20th-century Romanian male writers]]
[[Category:1994 deaths]]