Emmanuel Godo
Emmanuel Godo (born in 1965), is a French poet, writer and essayist. He holds an agrégation and a doctorate in literature, and teaches literature in preparatory classes at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. He is also a university lecturer at the Catholic University of Lille. A critic and author of literary essays, he specialises in the relationship between literature and inner experience, particularly spirituality. His critical work is influenced by Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille.
Biography
Emmanuel Godo was born in Chaumont-en-Vexin, Oise. In 1987, he obtained a master's degree in modern literature from Paris IV. His early work was devoted to the literary works of Maurice Barrès. His thesis was published in 1995 by Presses universitaires du Septentrion under the title La Légende de Venise, Maurice Barrès ou la tentation de l'écriture. In 1998, Emmanuel Godo published the proceedings of a symposium on Barrès, Ego scriptor, Maurice Barrès et l'écriture de soi, published by Kimé, which brought together a number of studies, including the last published text by Jean-Marie Domenach. In 2004, in collaboration with Jean-Michel Wittmann, he prepared an annotated edition of Les Déracinés by Barrès, published by Honoré Champion.
As part of the Catholic University of Lille, he directed several literature colloquiums published by Imago (PUF distribution): La conversion religieuse (2000), Littérature, rites et liturgies (2002), La Prière de l'écrivain (2004).
From 2001 onwards, Emmanuel Godo widened his field of research: from Victor Hugo to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Gérard de Nerval to Paul Claudel, from Alfred de Musset to Léon Bloy.
A meeting with photographer Louis Monier led him to write a tribute to his adopted region, Flanders: Flandre, terre d'eau et de ciels, published by Sud-Ouest (2011).
Thanks to the friendly support of writers Jean-Pierre Lemaire, Sylvie Germain and Colette Nys-Mazure, he published his first work of fiction, Un prince (2012), in the "Littérature ouverte" collection, published by Desclée de Brouwer.
Although he still devotes himself to literary criticism, from 2017 onwards Emmanuel Godo shifted his focus more clearly towards creative work. The first step was a meditative exploration of personal territories, published by Salvator, in the form of a trilogy — Ne fuis pas ta tristesse (2017), Mais quel visage a ta joie (2019), La Mort? Non, l'amour (2021). Second stage: writing self-fiction with Les Trois Vies de l'écrivain Mort-Debout (Busclats, 2018). The book, the result of a meeting with Marie-Claude Char and Michèle Gazier, takes the form of an imaginary diary in which a certain Godo questions his relationship with literary material.
But the most important step in this evolution concerns poetry. In June 2018, at the instigation of Guy Goffette, Gallimard published in its Blanche collection his first book of poetry: Je n'ai jamais voyagé. In March 2020, Gallimard published Emmanuel Godo's second collection of poems, Puisque la vie est rouge. According to Grégoire Roos, this second collection deepens the "face-to-face encounter, not with the unknown, but with an invisible made visible".
During the summer of 2019, he published a series of six articles devoted to Paul Claudel in the Essentials section of the weekly La Vie. Enriched with a prologue and an epilogue in the form of a prayer to Claudel, these articles were published by Salvator: Une Saison avec Claudel. He has since become a regular columnist for La Vie.
In October 2019, he published a novel, Conversation, avenue de France, entre Michel Houellebecq, écrivain et Évagre le Pontique, moine du désert, a fictional fable that raises the question of the role of the writer in the society of the spectacle.
In the new edition of his Anthologie protestante de la poésie française (Labor et Fides, 2020), Philippe François presents a number of texts by Godo, including the final poem of Je n'ai jamais voyagé: "Supplique pour mourir dans un merci".
Works
Fiction
- Un prince 92012; preface by Jean-Pierre Lemaire)
- Les Trois Vies de l'écrivain Mort-Debout (2018)
- Conversation avenue de France, Paris 13e, entre Michel Houellebecq, écrivain et Évagre le Pontique, moine du désert (2019)
- La Bible de ma mère (2022)
Non-fiction
- La Légende de Venise, Maurice Barrès et la tentation de l'écriture (1995)
- Victor Hugo et Dieu, bibliographie d'une âme (2001)
- Histoire de la conversation (2003; second edition, expanded by a chapter on conversation in the Middle Ages, 2015)
- Claudel, la vie au risque de la joie (2005)
- Sartre en diable (2005)
- Huysmans et l'évangile du réel (2007)
- Nerval ou la raison du rêve (2008)
- Une grâce obstinée, Musset (2010)
- Flandre, terre d'eau et de ciels (2011; with pictures by Louis Monier)
- Pourquoi nous battons-nous? 1914-1918: Les écrivains face à leur guerre (2014)
- L'Œuvre d'art contre la société du mépris. réinventer la vie intérieure (2015)
- La Conversation, une utopie de l'éphémère (2014)
- Léon Bloy, écrivain légendaire (2017)
- Ne fuis pas ta tristesse (2017)
- Mais quel visage a ta joie (2019)
- Une saison avec Paul Claudel (2019)
- La mort? non, l'amour (2021)
- Les Passeurs de l'absolu (2022)
- Maurice Barrès: le grand inconnu, 1862-1923 (2023)
Poetry
- Je n'ai jamais voyagé (2018)
- Puisque la vie est rouge (2020)
- Les Égarées de Noël (2023)
