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!This Hard -Boiled and Noir, whatever is the ! COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS ABOUT SÉRIE NOIRE George Duhamel In his memoirs:'Raconte pas ta Vie' - Do Not tell your Life- published in 1972, Duhamel then 72 years old gives some account about the birth of Série Noire. However in this book of more than 550 pages, only 25 to 30 are devoted to SN and its authors! Most of his autobiography is dedicated to the encounterers of Duhamel with prominent figures of the French and foreign artistic life, in France. 
Gaston Gallimard One of the most important publishers in France. When he died in 1975, his family took over a real "book empire" with its foundations deep in the best of the French literary production of the 20th century. He refused to publish his memoirs, but more recently (1984) Pierre Assouline published an unofficial bio of Gaston Gallimard describing the milestones of this incredible publisher's career, and trying also to put some light on more obscure episodes of Gallimard's life. In Assouline's book, a mere 4 pages are superficially reporting about Série Noire and Duhamel !! The front cover of Assouline's book mimics the artwork of Gallimard "nrf" style of "white books" all dedicated to literature (French and foreign) ===>> La 'Blanche' Most of literary novels and essays published by Gallimard were under a "white" (blanche) cover, with red titles and no photos nor illustration. "La blanche" was the nickname given to the literary series published by Gallimard. Serie Noire will be the opposite. The black covers and the word Black (Noire) in his title were a direct manifesto proclaiming the originality of the series. Years later, and to mark the boundaries of the literature promoted by SN, "la blanche" will designate the mainstream literature itself, as carried by the literary publications of Gallimard and the like. The expression will be mainly used by those from outside, opposing the intellectual supremacy of "la blanche" and questioning its content. "La litterature Noire" designates now in French, since years, all mystery novels with hard-boiled or Noir setup of a certain quality. n.r.f. logos... The most prestigious literary works published by Gallimard were marked with the "Nouvelle Revue Française" logo. Considering it as valuable literature as well, Duhamel obtained to keep this logo on his black covers for the novels published in Série Noire. Only colors differs: yellow or white are used for the 3 letters on SN covers. It later disappeared from the covers of the series, to resurface recently when the covers were redesigned after the original SN dustcovers of the fifties. Back to pure black During the nineties, Série Noire came back to its classical cover design of the fifties. Left, there is a reproduction of the cover for SN 2489 (April 1998). 1998 saw the publication of SN 2500, a novel by a French writer. Série Noire: emblematic in modern French culture Films,literary critics, popular culture analysts, magazines, newspapers, TV, radio, comics... will all carry at certain moments the symbols of Série Noire as the emblematic of a certain vision of society. To complement the intellectual impact, lots of these media will often mimic the presentation of the series. Covers of Série Noire are so emblematic that we may say that today it is part of the French social symbolism. One example of this is the recent publication of a special issue of the literary bimonthly "Les Temps Moderne" (TM 595- October 1997) titled: 'Roman Noir- Pas d'Orchidées pour les TM' - Noir Novel;No Orchids for TM. The cover evokes, without any doubt, the basic colors and fonts utilized by Série Noire and the title is a parody of one of the first titles in the series, by James Hadley Chase(see left)===>>. Very interesting essays and articles by French specialists and authors are gathered in this issue, giving, under others, an extensive examination of the history of the French noir novel and of its present days status. This very intellectual "revue" was founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and examines literary and social facts with a leftist point of view. END © copyright 1998,1999 E.Borgers Beginning of chapter... <=== click to previous pages |
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