Published by Arcane 17, appeared Mon alphabet d’existencethe posthumous autobiography of Jack Ralite. The former communist minister and man of letters talks about his love for the arts and artists, his fights for culture.
Mon Alphabet d’existence… What a great title for a work which can be read without moderation, in complete freedom, drawing from the pages which cleverly alternate between intimate and public memories and tasty portraits of artists who were his friends – Marcello Mastroianni, Ettore Scola, Jean Prat –, a great and beautiful life lesson entirely dedicated to politics, art and artists. It all starts from the cover of the book, handwritten notes thrown in bulk, like those Ralite took on scraps of paper that he kept preciously in his pockets. « Sans ªtre poète, Jack Ralite pondered poétiquement »writes Laurent Fleury in his preface. All his life, Relate drew quotes from poetsnot to artificially flourish his speeches, but to push further the songs/fields of possibility, to breathe life into this communist ideal that he had held in his heart, to share them with everyone, whether they are professionals or professors at the College of France.
An atypical communist
We thus walk through the memories of a man who, from childhood, marked by the Occupation and his arrest by the Nazis at the age of 14, never stopped fighting against injustice and for human emancipation. Mayor of Aubervilliers, MP, Minister of Health in 1981 then senator, Relate records his memories without hierarchybut with the same passion that has never left her since childhood. A communist leader, he hides nothing of his disagreements with the party, “his” party, which he will never leave. Living his whole life, despite the numerous functions he held, in his small HLM in Aubervilliers, to feel the pulse of its inhabitants, he confides:« It’s true that I always have one hand with the artists and another with the workers. If I drop one, I limp and I don’t like limping.”
Founder of the General States of Culture, he met poets, artists and intellectuals from around the world. He was one of the main architects of this fundamental idea of cultural exception.. He left us with the tools to rethink another public cultural policy in the present. Let’s leave the final words to her great friend, Leïla Shahid:“I owe a lot to Jack. Palestine too. And there will remain in our hearts a light at the end of the tunnel, a guide.” Marie-José Sirach
My Alphabet of Existence, Jack Ralite (éd. Arcane 17, 220 p., 25€).
:quality(80)/outremer%2F2026%2F05%2F19%2F6a0b9932019d6451272508.png "His career in the service of culture praised: Fabien Mara Dinard, knight in the Order of Arts and Letters")
