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Ferry, Jean

Pseudonym of French screenwriter and author Jean André Medous (1906-1974) who also wrote as by Jean Lévy. Some of his scripts contain fantastic elements, but no sf. His involvement in Oulipo was strong, but was not directly reflected in his fiction. He is of interest for several untranslated studies of Raymond Roussel [not listed below], and for the fleeting but resonant intimacy with Fantastika exposed in the short tales and vignettes assembled as Le Mécanicien et autres contes (coll 1950; exp 2010; trans Edward Gauvin as The Conductor and Other Tales 2013) [for further details see Checklist below], which includes a short tale, "Raymond Rousel in Heaven" in which Roussel meets Camille Flammarion and Jules Verne in the afterlife. His work is clearly influenced by French Surrealism, but also by Jorge Luis Borges; and "Kafka, or 'The Secret Society'" stringently compresses one of Franz Kafka's central premises: that the world is a bureaucracy with no exit. [JC]

Jean André Medous

born Capons, Haute-Garonne, France: 1906

died Créteil, Val-de-Marne, France: 5 September 1974

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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight.
Accessed 10:01 am on 29 March 2024.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/ferry_jean>