Antimémoires

Octavo, 604 pp., (3) leaves. Paperback, partially unopened, as published.

206 x 139 mm.

Malraux, André. Antimémoires.
Paris, Gallimard, 1967.

First edition.

One of 80 deluxe copies on Holland vellum (No. 22).

Although it appears at first to be a traditional autobiographical narrative, this confession diverges from the genre by blending historical facts with numerous fictional elements and by rejecting linear chronology in favor of a circular timeline.

The guiding thread of Antimémoires is a journey Malraux undertook in 1965, taking him from Egypt to China via the Arabian Peninsula and India. Each stop recalls earlier journeys. Every memory leads to another, which in turn leads to yet another.

The book primarily questions the necessity of memory work. It is not, strictly speaking, an autobiography of the author; Antimémoires is rather a review of his life connected to major political and geopolitical events of his era, in which he also discusses numerous authors who left their mark on social life.

“Neither confessions nor memoirs, but a tireless questioning of an experience increasingly transformed into consciousness. The Antimémoires, despite their reserve, are a self-portrait: that of a brilliant and fraternal mind who, by asking the right questions, moves from ‘problems’ to ‘mysteries’, from Gide to Bernanos” (Nouveau dictionnaire des œuvres).

In 1995, Jacques Lecarme, in an article published in the Revue des Lettres modernes, attributed the invention of “autofiction” to Malraux: “In this autofiction, Malraux seems to us to be one of the inventors, although he is not given credit for it”; it was in fact ten years later that the genre would be recognized and established by Doubrovsky.

One of the very first readers of the work, General de Gaulle, telegraphed Malraux: “A remarkable book in all three dimensions.”

A fine copy from the deluxe issue, preserved in original wrappers, as issued.