Randell Cottage marks the death of our 2003 French writer-in-residence with these memories from our Trustee Jean Anderson, who visited Charles Juliet and his wife in Jujurieux, the tiny village where they spent their summers and where Charles was born, and in Lyon as they worked together on translating poems by New Zealand writers.
Charles Juliet (1934–2024)
Our second French writer, Charles Juliet and his wife ML arrived in 2003 toward the end of winter. The cottage was not then equipped with a heat pump, and one of the first steps they took was to send for their winter overcoats: the contrast between the picture postcard images of island beaches bathed in permanent sunshine and the reality of Thorndon in the shade was clearly a shock to them.
A well-known poet, essayist and diarist, Charles began publishing his Journal in 1978 continuing through to volume ten, published in 2020 and covering the period 2009–2012. Titled Au pays du long nuage blanc (Land of the Long White Cloud), volume eight documented his impressions of their stay in Wellington. Charles and ML had limited English, especially Charles, so these impressions are somewhat blurred by linguistic limitations.
Charles was born in a tiny village in the east of France, close to the Swiss border. The fifth child in a poor family, he was sent at one month old to live with a Swiss family after his mother (probably in the grip of postnatal depression) attempted suicide and was interned in a psychiatric institution where she would later be locked in under the Occupation’s extermination douce (gentle extermination) and left to die. These grim circumstances left a permanent mark, and much of Charles’ work is a deeply introspective exploration of the self and its bonds with others. In spite of his depression, he had a strong but very dry sense of humour – the kind the French call pince sans rire (literally ‘pinching without laughing’).
After training as a military cadet and beginning medical studies, he abandoned his ambitions to be an army doctor and, thanks to the financial and emotional support of ML, was able to dedicate himself to literature and to writing, finding there a kind of solace. He elaborates on this, notably, in Ces mots qui nourrissent et qui apaisent (2008; These Words that Nourish and Calm), notes from his reading. Apart from his Journal, his best-known works, both autobiographical, are probably L’Année de l’éveil (1989; The Year of My Awakening), made into a film by Gérard Corbiau in 1991, and Lambeaux (1995; Shreds / Tatters), which has been on the national baccalaureat curriculum for many years. In the latter, he explores his own life, but begins with that of his mother, who also kept diaries.
He was in addition a noted writer about art and an acclaimed poet: in 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt for the whole of his work.