Joyce Mansour

Joyce Mansour was an Egyptian-French author and part of the inner circle of postwar surrealists. She wrote 16 books of poetry as well as prose works and plays. 

Mansour was born in Bowden, England, to Jewish-Egyptian parents. The family lived in Cheshire for a month before moving to Cairo, Egypt. Mansour married her first husband, Henri Naggar, when she was 19 years old; he died six months later. In 1949, she married Samir Mansour, a wealthy Cairo banker, with whom she had two sons. Though she was fluent in both English and French, sometime around the date of her marriage, Mansour transitioned to writing her poems in French. While still living in Cairo, she came into contact with Parisian surrealism. 

In 1953, Mansour moved to Paris. That same year, her first poetry collection, Cris, was published by Pierre Seghers. The collection was considered provocative; Mansour blended erotic and religious imagery, and the figure of Christ was replaced by that of a lover. Jean-Louis Bédouin wrote a review praising Cris in Médium: Communication surréaliste, after which Mansour became an active participant in the second wave of surrealism in Paris. 

Mansour’s Paris apartment in the 16th arrondissement became a popular meeting place, and she collaborated with artists, writers, and musicians such as Hans Bellmer, Ted Joans, Enrico Baj, and others. Jean Benoît’s performance piece, Exécution du testament du Marquis de Sade, often noted as one of the most significant works of post-war surrealism, took place in Mansour’s apartment and coincided with the 1959 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme (International Exhibition of Surrealism). André Breton was immediately drawn to Mansour’s work, and the two remained close friends until his death in 1966. Mansour dedicated two poetry collections to Breton: Carré Blanc (le Soleil noir, 1965) and Les Damnations (Editions Georges Visat, 1966).

Mansour and her husband divided their time between Cairo and Paris until 1956, when her family was forced out of Egypt after the Suez Crisis. The government seized most of her family’s assets, as well as those of many other Jewish families. As a result of this exile, Mansour’s family settled in Paris permanently. Her childhood home now houses the Greek embassy in Cairo. 

She collaborated with other poets and artists throughout her life, and she published both poetry and short stories. These collections were often illustrated by major surrealist painters. Mansour died of cancer in Paris in 1986, the same year she released her final collection, Trous noirs (La Pierre d'Alun). 

In an essay on Mansour, Emilie Moorhouse noted the following

Mansour was known within Surrealist circles because André Breton was a champion of her work, but beyond those circles, she was ignored. Her use of irony mixed with the erotic macabre shares similarities with the work of much more renowned French poets: She is a Baudelaire minus the shame or a George Bataille au feminin. And yet her books, once published by surrealist presses, are out of print in France. A collection of her complete works in French—which includes both short stories and poetry collections—was published in 2014 by Michel de Maule but is increasingly difficult to find. That same year, her daughter-in-law published her biography, but it too is becoming rare. 

Some recent English translations of Mansour’s work include the bilingual editions Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems (City Lights, 2023), translated by Emilie Moorhouse, and Joyce Mansour: Essential Poems and Writings (Black Widow, 2008), translated by Serge Gavronsky. Interestingly, in his introduction to the book, Gavronsky noted that Mansour was featured prominently in the numerous photographs of the surrealist group. She often appeared next to Breton, and in several of the photographs, she was the only woman among the group. 

Although her work might not have been well known outside surrealist circles, several translators, poets, and literary critics argue that she is an influential and notable figure of French surrealism. In a blog post for The Best American Poetry, poet Shanna Compton notes Mansour could be considered an influence on or a predecessor of contemporary poets such as Ariana Reines, Danielle Pafunda, Lara Glenum, and Kim Hyesoon and that traces of her poetics can be found in Joyelle McSweeney’s exploration of the Necropastoral and the Flarf poetry movement. 

The June 2023 issue of Poetry includes “When Can I See You Again: The Poetry of Joyce Mansour,” a folio of Mansour’s poetry translated by Emilie Moorhouse alongside images of the poet by photographer Marion Kalter and an introduction to Mansour’s work written by Marwa Helal.