Malcolm de Chazal (12 September 1902 – 1 October 1981) was a Mauritian writer, painter, and visionary, known especially for his Sens-Plastique, a work consisting of several thousand aphorisms and pensées.
Early life and education
Chazal was born in Vacoas of a French family long established in Mauritius and wrote all his works in French. Except for six years at Louisiana State University, where he received an engineering degree, he spent most of his time in Mauritius where he worked as an agronomist on sugar plantations and later for the Office of Telecommunications.
Writing
In 1940 he began to publish in Mauritius a series of volumes consisting of hundreds of numbered thoughts and ideas entitled Pensées. In 1945, a seventh volume of Pensées, bound with another collection of unnumbered aphorisms entitled Sens-Plastique appeared, and two years later a separate Sens-Plastique, Volume II, appeared. It was this latter volume on which the Gallimard edition of 1948 was based that brought Chazal into prominence in France. He was hailed as a surrealist by André Breton and ex Journalist Adeenarain M Tatiah. The following examples may illustrate the novelty and variety of Sens-Plastique.
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Half-opened petals give the flower an adenoidal look.
We know the halls of the eye like welcome visitors but we live in our mouth.
Any man who acts singly in the press of a mob will get trampled. Shifting into reverse while making love can kill you.
Immediately before it falls, water turns into a living being as if a person's soul had just slipped into it: look at the way it bends and twists, writhing in desperation. (What if you threw a not quite cold corpse out of an airplane—would the dead awaken?...)}}
In the prefaces and afterwords of the various editions of Sens-Plastique Chazal explained his method of thinking and writing as follows: