Malcolm de Chazal

• Name — Malcolm de Chazal • Born — 12 September 1902 • Birthplace — Vacoas, Mauritius • Died — 1 October 1981 • Occupation — Painter • Known for — Sens-Plastique

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.

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.

• 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

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.