Malcolm de Chazal

Malcolm de Chazal (12 September 1902 – 1 October 1981) was a Mauritian writer, painter, and visionary, known especially for his Sens-Plastique, a work consisting of several thousand aphorisms and pensées.

Early life and education Chazal was born in Vacoas of a French family long established in Mauritius and wrote all his works in French. Except for six years at Louisiana State University, where he received an engineering degree, he spent most of his time in Mauritius where he worked as an agronomist on sugar plantations and later for the Office of Telecommunications.

Writing In 1940 he began to publish in Mauritius a series of volumes consisting of hundreds of numbered thoughts and ideas entitled Pensées. In 1945, a seventh volume of Pensées, bound with another collection of unnumbered aphorisms entitled Sens-Plastique appeared, and two years later a separate Sens-Plastique, Volume II, appeared. It was this latter volume on which the Gallimard edition of 1948 was based that brought Chazal into prominence in France. He was hailed as a surrealist by André Breton and ex Journalist Adeenarain M Tatiah. The following examples may illustrate the novelty and variety of Sens-Plastique.

In the prefaces and afterwords of the various editions of Sens-Plastique Chazal explained his method of thinking and writing as follows:

Chazal's other writings include notably La Vie Filtrée (1949), a collection of essays that elaborate the ideas found in Sens-Plastique, Sens Magique (1957) and Poèmes (1968 ), gnomic verses that dramatize the experiences described in Sens-Plastique, and Petrusmok (1951), the spiritual history of Mauritius found in its natural surroundings.

Sens-Plastique has been translated into English by Irving Weiss in a volume published by Green Integer (2008) as Sens-Plastique.

Works 1940 : Pensées I, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1942 : Pensées II, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1942 : Pensées III, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1943 : Pensées IV, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1944 : Pensées V, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1944 : Pensées VI, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd (Pensées I à VII reprinted: Exils, 1999) 1945 : Pensées et Sens-Plastique, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1945 : Pensées VII, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1946 : Histoire de la pensée universelle, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd 1947 : Sens-plastique II, The General Printing & Stationery Cy Ltd, Gallimard, repr.. 1948, 1985 1949 : La Vie filtrée, Gallimard 1950 : Iésou, The Almadinah Printing Press, théâtre 1950 : L'Âme de la musique, The Mauritius Printing Cy Ltd 1950 : La Pierre philosophale, The Almadinah Printing Press 1950 : Penser par étapes, P.A. Bettencourt, in Réalités secrètes 1961 1951 : Petrusmok, The Standard Printing Est., 1951, La Table Ovale, 1979 1951 : Mythologie du Crève-Cœur, The Almadinah Printing Press, 1951 1951 : Le Rocher de Sisyphe, The Mauritius Printing Cy Ltd, 1951, Patrice Thierry-L’Ether Vague, 1996 1951 : Aggenèse I, The Almadinah Printing Press 1951 : La Clef du cosmos, The Mauritius Printing Cy Ltd, 1951, Patrice Thierry — L’Ether Vague, 1994 1951 : Manifeste, Aggenèse II, Révélation de la nuit, The Almadinah Printing Press, 1951 1952 : Le Livre de conscience, The Almadinah Printing Press, 1952, Arma Artis, 1985 1952 : La Grande révélation, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : La Science immortelle, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : Le Roi du monde, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : Le Pape et la science et la révélation de l’angélisme, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : Le Livre d’or, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : La Bible du mal, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : L'Évangile de l’eau, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : La Fin du monde, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : Le Livre des principes, The Almadinah Printing Press 1952 : Message aux Français, in Synthèse 1953 : Judas, Esclapon 1953 : Judas ou la trahison du prêtre, Popular Printing 1953 : L’Absolu, The Almadinah Printing Press 1953 : Pentateuque, The Almadinah Printing Press 1953 : Préambule à l’absolu, The Almadinah Printing Press 1954 : Les Deux infinis, The Almadinah Printing Press 1954 : L’Espace ou Satan, The Standard Printing Est. 1954 : Les Dieux ou les consciences-univers, Esclapon Ltd 1954 : Les Désamorantes, suivi de Le Concile des poètes, The Mauritius Printing Cy Ltd; 1954 : Le Sens de l’absolu, The Almadinah Printing Press 1957 : Sens-Magique, The Almadinah Printing Press, 1957, 1958, Lachenal et Ritter, 1983 1958 : Sens-Magique, 2ème édition, Tananarive 1958 : Apparadoxes, The Almadinah Printing Press 1968 : Poèmes, Jean-Jacques Pauvert 1973 : L'Île Maurice proto-historique…, Guillemette de Spéville 1974 : L’Homme et la connaissance, Jean-Jacques Pauvert 1974 : Sens unique, 1974, L’Ether Vague, 1985 1976 : La Bouche ne s’endort jamais, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1976, Patrice Thierry — L’Ether Vague, 1994

Painting Chazal took up painting in the 1950s at the suggestion of Georges Braque. Unlike the speculative aphoristic character of his best-known writings, his paintings concentrated on natural forms and landscapes in a primitive, emblematic style.