Biography

…Today 2002…

2002

Is awarded the ARDUA prize (Bordeaux) for his work as a whole. Prepares the edition of his Collected Poems, Open World, published the following year by Polygon, Edinburgh. Follows more bird paths in the Indian Ocean.

2003

A symposium Horizons de Kenneth White : littérature, pensée, géopoétique (Horizons of Kenneth White – Literature, Thought, Geopoetics) is held at Bordeaux, its papers published by Isolato, Paris, in 2007. Another symposium on his work is held in Scotland at the University of St Andrews, leading to a book published in 2005 by Alba Editions under the title Grounding a World. The film Sur la trace des esprits ailés (The Traces Left by Winged Minds) shot by Michel Dupuy, director of Les Films du moment in his collection « Terre d’écrivains », receives the citation for literature at the UNESCO International Film Festival for art and education. Trip to Polynesia : a lecture on Gauguin at Tahiti in the context of a conference organized by the University of French Polynesia, followed by a journey from island to island.

2004

Takes part in an international poetry symposium in Italy at Stresa-Orta organised by the literary review Atelier. An international colloquium on geopoetics is held at Geneva, organized by the University of Geneva. Lecture on Rimbaud, at the poet’s birth-place, Charleville-Mézières. Lecture on Saint-John Perse in Paris at an international colloquium on that poet organized by the Sorbonne. Publishes two new books in Britain : The Wanderer and his Chartsand Across the Territories. Receives the Édouard-Glissant prize attributed by the University of Paris-VIII for his « openness to the cultures of the world ».

2005

Publishes three new books in France : Le Passage extérieur (poems), La Maison des marées (French version of House of Tides), L’Ermitage des brumes (The Hermitage of the mist – interviews on his relationship to the East, with an anthology of his haikus). Lectures : at an international symposium in Cerisy on the theory of complexity ; at the University of Rennes for the inauguration of a new Maison des sciences de l’homme ; on prehistory and geopoetics at the National Museum of Prehistory in the Dordogne ; at the Edinburgh Book Festival (« What is World Writing ? ») ; in north-west Scotland (« A reading of Atlantic culture ») as the recipient of the first Hi-Arts International Fellowship. Receives an honorary doctorate from the Open University.

2006

Publication of Le Rôdeur des confins (French version of Across the Territories). Lectures : at the Cité des Sciences on the theme of « Poetic intelligence » ; at the Iberian and Latino-American section of the University of Paris-III on « Travelling and founding » ; at the abbey of Bonport on the theme of « Open World » ; in Munich at the World Congress of Geometers on geopoetics ; at the Grand Bivouac Festival of Albertville on travel. Is awarded the Prix Bretagne for his book La Maison des marées and his work as a whole. In Scotland, is nominated Visiting Professor to the projected University of the Highlands and Islands. Publishes the lectures done in Scotland in 2002 under the title On the Atlantic Edge.

2007

Publication in Paris, in the collection Poésie/Gallimard, of Un monde ouvert, a large selection of his complete poetic work to date. This year sees also the publication of his essay on Deleuze, Dialogue avec Deleuze, along with the re-edition of his book on Victor Segalen, Les Finisterres de l’esprit, at Isolato Editions, Paris ; and a re-edition of his Asian travels, Le Visage du vent d’est, with Albin Michel, Paris. A new study of his work, by Tony McManus, is published in Scotland : The Radical Field. Readings at the « national people’s theatre » (TNP) of Villeurbanne and at the festival Étonnants Voyageurs at Saint-Malo. Lectures : in Paris, in the « Travel series » of the Éditions Transboréal ; at the Ullapool Book Festival, on Scottish literature ; at Tournefeuille at the Festival of History and literature ; at the Edinburgh Book Festival, on « radical writing » ; at the Hebridean Book Festival, Stornoway, on the question of insularity ; at the Inverness Book Festival, on the work of Neil Gunn. President of the International Poetry Biennale at Liège, in Belgium. Guest of honour at the Books in Brittany festival at Bécherel (lectures and readings). Honorary President of the Breton Book Festival, Guérande. To cool off, trip to Alaska.

2008

Begins to sort out manuscripts and correspondence for a deposit of his French archives at the IMEC (Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine), the equivalent of his Scottish archives at the National Library in Edinburgh. Inaugural lecture (« Pilot-Plan for a Highliner University ») as Visiting Professor at the projected University of the Highlands and Islands. Takes part at the St Andrews Poetry Festival. Later in the year, at the Istrian Book Festival, Pula, Croatia, with talks, interviews and readings on the theme of nomadism. In Italy, receives the Grinzane-Biamonti prize for his work as a whole.

2009

Continues his activity as travelling lecturer. In France at the municipal library of Dinan, Brittany ; at the book festival in Montpellier ; and at the school of architecture, Clermont-Ferrand. Guest of honour at the Book Festival of Montenegro, with lectures and readings. Delivers a lecture at the National Library of Scotland : « Moving Out –The Extension and Expansion of Scottish Intelligence ». In Paris, publishes a book of essays, Les Affinités extrêmes, which is at one and the same time a homage to certain French writers and a kind of intellectual biography by proxy. This book is awarded the Grand Prix Maurice Genevoix of the Académie française.

2010

Celebrates the new year by breaking a leg on the icy granite steps of his workshop. Carrying in his hands a Japanese earthen teapot, he saves the teapot but shatters his left femur. After ten days in the hospital at Lannion, where he reads Schopenhauer while listening to the talk of the nurses, he gets back to Gwenved where, after a few sessions of kinesitherapy, he begins stomping about on crutches, first around the garden, then on the Pors Mabo road, which has never before seemed to him so beautiful. He uses this accident as a point of departure for studies in bone structure, the mechanisms of walking, and the practice of proprioception. In October, back on his feet again, he does a lecture and a reading on the occasion of the staging, at the town library of Saint-Brieuc, of the exhibition Open World.

2011

Publishes simultaneously La Carte de Guido, un pèlerinage européen(prose) and a new book of poems, Les Archives du littoral, which is awarded the Prix Alain Bosquet. Lecture and reading tour in Corsica : Ajaccio, on intellectual nomadism, Corte, on geopoetics, Bastia, on politics and culture, Bonifacio, a reading of island poems. Other lectures at the European Centre for Archeology in the Morvan (on geopoetics) ; at Pau on « Travel and writing » ; at the Parc régional of the Narbonne area on « walking the territories » ; guest of honour at the Parole ambulante festival in Lyon. Seminar on geopoetics at the University of Paris 3. Participates in a symposium at the Centre culturel of Cerisy-la-Salle on « Alternative cultures » with a presentation of the geopoetics movement. Writes the text, « Le territoire extrême », for a album on the Finistère district of Brittany. Finalizes further loads of archives : English language material for the National Library of Scotland at Edinburgh, French material for the IMEC at the Abbaye d’Ardenne near Caen.