Naim Kattan Biography

Unlike most contemporary Quebec writers, Naim Kattan was not born in Quebec, but his cultural heritage, that of the Jewish minority in an Arab country, has made him particularly sensitive to the problems and aspirations of the French-speaking minority in English-speaking North America. As he himself is well aware, Kattan's experience of the Middle East, Europe, and most recently North America follows the evolutionary path of Western civilization, from his birthplace, the "Cradle of Civilization," to modern America. This unique cultural background forms the basis of Kattan's work as a literary critic and, since his arrival in Canada, as a novelist and author of short stories.

Born in Baghdad to Nessim and Hela Saleh Kattan, Kattan grew up in the Jewish community of the Iraqi capital, attended the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Faculty of Law of the University of Baghdad, and very quickly became interested not only in Arabic literature but also in contemporary French literature. As a scholarship student sponsored by the French government, he went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne from 1947 to 1951 and soon became active in Parisian literary circles. After immigrating to Canada in 1954, Kattan founded Le Bulletin du Cercle Juif, taught briefly at the Université Laval, worked for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, and later became a professional literary critic and a regular contributor to the literary pages of the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir . His July 1961 marriage to actress Gaetane Laniel produced one child, Emmanuel. In 1967 he became directly involved in the public funding of the arts in Canada as head of the writing and publication section of the Canada Council, a position which he still holds.

Both of Kattan's early novels, Adieu, Babylone (1975; translated as Farewell, Babylon, 1976) and Les Fruits arrachés (1977; translated as Paris Interlude, 1979), are highly autobiographical accounts of the experiences of a young Iraqi Jew, passionately interested in literature from an early age. Adieu, Babylone is set in Baghdad during World War II, against a background of political unrest, conflicts between the Arabs and the Jews, and the tragic events of the war. The young narrator describes in detail his first literary endeavors, his attempts to emulate the major literary figures of the time, including Hemingway and Malraux, and his first experiences with women. Like Kattan, after attempting to found a literary journal the narrator decides to leave his homeland to study in France. Les Fruits arrachés, the sequel to Adieu, Babylone, recounts the adventures of a young Iraqi Jew in postwar Paris. The student days of the narrator Méir in Paris bear a remarkable similarity to the experiences of Kattan himself. The culture shock experienced by Méir, his introduction to the works of the Surrealists and Camus, as well as his interest in the writing of Henry Miller, all correspond closely to events in Kattan's life. Miller's influence on Kattan's work is undeniable, as is that of other major modern American novelists. What makes Kattan's novels interesting is the analysis which they provide of the effects of culture shock upon a sensitive young writer.

Cultural differences between the Middle East and Europe and between Europe and North America, as they manifest themselves in the literatures of these civilizations, is a central theme of Kattan's literary criticism, as well as of his fiction. In the essay collection Le Réel et le théâtral (1970), winner of the Prix France-Canada in 1971, he examines the differences between Arab, European, and North American concepts of man's relationship with nature, God, and his fellow man in an attempt to explain why theater is such an important part of Western literature, except in the Middle East. The three volumes of his Ecrivains des Amériques (1972-1980), devoted to the literatures of the United States, English Canada, and Latin America, present a coherent view of American literature, in the widest sense of the term, as it reflects the culture of the Americas. Kattan's vast literary experience enables him to bring a fresh and stimulating new viewpoint to the criticism of Western literature. In his 1978 essay, La Mémoire et la promesse, he synthesizes a theory which runs throughout his critical works and is also reflected in his fiction: the idea that the American experience has been a deliberate attempt to relive the biblical story of the exile, the years in the desert, and the search for the Promised Land.

The biblical parable of the exile in the desert and the long wait for access to the Promised Land also explains the titles of several of Kattan's short-story collections, Dans le désert (1974), La Traversée (1976), and Le Rivage (1979), as well as the informing metaphor of the essay collection Le Désir et le pouvoir (1983). For the characters who inhabit Kattan's fictional world, the Promised Land takes on many forms, but usually what the individual is seeking is a better understanding of himself and a closer relationship with those he loves. The plots of his stories unfold in many parts of the world, although recently Kattan has tended to prefer Canadian settings. Kattan's characters are usually undergoing some sort of crisis, a situation often complicated by culture shock, as many of his characters are recent immigrants to Canada. The theme of the confrontation between two very different cultures serves as a focal point around which Kattan weaves stories dealing with various fundamental human problems, such as marital infidelity. In 1982 several of Kattan's short stories were translated by Judith Madley and Patricia Claxton in a volume entitled The Neighbour and Other Stories .

Naim Kattan occupies a significant position in contemporary Quebec literature. Unlike most modern Quebec writers, he is a professional literary critic, and in his work there is constant interaction between his creative works and his critical activities. Unlike most writers whose works are published in Quebec, he is not a Quebecois, and the international flavor of his work tends to broaden the horizons of literary life in Canada. His most recent works--including the novel La Fiancée promise (1983) and the story collection La Reprise (1985)--show that despite an increasing interest in Canadian life and Canadian problems, Kattan will remain very close to the main currents of Western literature as a whole and thus provide an antidote to the increasingly regional character and narrow outlook of much of French-Canadian literature.