Austruy, Henri
Entry updated 16 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1871-1944) French lawyer, journalist, editor and author. He was not a prolific Writer, his time being mostly taken by his editorship of La Nouvelle Revue from 1913 to 1940, when it was shut down by the occupying forces. In 1913 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Much of his modest output is sf, including L'Eupantophone (September-December 1904 La Nouvelle Revue; 1905; trans Brian Stableford with added stories as The Eupantophone and Other Stories coll 2014), a Satire on pre-World War One France conveyed by tracing the consequences of the Invention of the eponymous machine, which reads texts aloud. L'Ère "Petitpaon" ou la Paix universelle (1906; trans Brian Stableford with added stories as The Petitpaon Era coll 2014), satirically addresses the possibilities of a Near Future world peace, depicting a world where conflicts are solved by Mathematics: winners and losers in any conflict being determined through pre-calculations of the number of combatants who would die or suffer maiming. "L'Olotelepan" (1925 La Nouvelle Revue), title story of The Oloteleplan (coll trans Brian Stableford from various sources 2014), is set in an Alternate History whose main distinction from this world is the eponymous Machine, which transmits one's senses to chosen recipients.
Perhaps owing to its Surrealist impertinences and assaults upon conventional perceptions of the world, Austruy's work did not during his lifetime enjoy the success it merited; indeed the left-wing, anti-Nazi journalism he produced in La Nouvelle Review before the outbreak of World War Two may have imperilled his life. Shortly after the occupation of Paris in June 1940, he perhaps wisely vanished from public view; he died before the war ended. [JC]
Henri Austruy
born Cuzorn, Lot et Garonne, Aquitaine, France: 5 July 1871
died Paris: 29 November 1944
works
- L'Eupantophone (Paris: Flammarion, 1905) [first appeared September-December 1904 La Nouvelle Revue: binding unknown/]
- The Eupantophone and Other Stories (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2014) [coll: trans by Brian Stableford of the above with added stories: pb/Jean-Félix Lyon]
- L'Ère "Petitpaon" ou la Paix universelle (Paris: L Michaud, 1906) [binding unknown/]
- The Petitpaon Era (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2014) [coll: trans by Brian Stableford of the above with added stories: pb/Jean-Félix Lyon]
- The Oloteleplan (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2014) [coll: trans by Brian Stableford from various source: pb/Jean-Félix Lyon]
links
previous versions of this entry