Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, March 3, 2010 | 7:00PM - 9:00PM | The Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility, Munk Centre For International Studies - 1 Devonshire Place |
| Wednesday, March 3, 2010 | 7:00PM - 9:00PM | Campbell Conference Facility Lounge, Munk Centre For International Studies - 1 Devonshire Place |
Description
LOUIS BEGLEY, b. Poland, October 6, 1933. Author of: Wartime Lies (1991), The Man Who Was Late (1993), As Max Saw It (1994), About Schmidt (1996), Mistler’s Exit (1998), Schmidt Delivered (2000), Das Gelobte Land (2001), Venedig unter vier Augen (with Anka Muhlstein, 2003), Shipwreck (2003), Matters of Honor (2007), Zwischen Fakten und Fiktionen (2008), The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka (2008), Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (2009), short fiction, and numerous essays and articles. Retired partner, Debevoise & Plimpton. Education: AB (summa cum laude), Harvard, 1954; LL.B. (magna cum laude), Harvard, 1959. Prizes include: The Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize, National Book Award Finalist, National Book Critics’ Circle Finalist, PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award, Prix Médicis Étranger, Jeanette-Schocken-Preis, Bremerhavener Bürgerpreis für Literatur, American Academy of Letters Award in Literature, Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung Literaturpreis. Past President PEN American Center. Chevalier, Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Ph. D. (h.c.), University of Heidelberg.
In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant French artillery officer and a Jew of Alsatian descent, was court-martialed for selling secrets to the German military attaché in Paris based on perjured testimony and trumped-up evidence. The sentence was military degradation and life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a hellhole off the coast of French Guiana. Five years later, the case was overturned, and eventually Dreyfus was completely exonerated. Meanwhile, the Dreyfus Affair tore France apart, pitting Dreyfusards—committed to restoring freedom and honor to an innocent man convicted of a crime committed by another—against nationalists, anti-Semites, and militarists who preferred having an innocent man rot to exposing the crimes committed by ministers of war and the army’s top brass in order to secure Dreyfus’s conviction.
Was the Dreyfus Affair merely another instance of the rise in France of a virulent form of anti-Semitism? In Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters, the acclaimed novelist draws upon his legal expertise to create a riveting account of the famously complex case, and to remind us of the interest each one of us has in the faithful execution of laws as the safeguard of our liberties and honor.
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