) is a Swiss writer and essayist.

Early life and education

Raphaël Aubert was brought up in a family of artists. He studied in the Faculty of Arts and Theology at University of Lausanne

University of Lausanne

The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 12,000 students and 2200 researchers study and work at the university...

 and in Paris.

Career

His first book Proche de l’argile ou la Remontée, a collection of poems, was published in 1975. He has since then published ten books including short stories and some novels, especially La bataille de San Romano (The Battle of San Romano), the action of which starts at the Louvre and questions the mysteries of Paolo Uccello

Paolo Uccello

Paolo Uccello , born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his...

's famous painting, and La Terrasse des éléphants (Elephants's terrace), novel of the encounter and destiny during the last years of the Vietnam's war.

As a journalist for Radio Suisse Romande

Radio Suisse Romande

Radio suisse romande is an enterprise unit within public-broadcasting corporation SRG SSR. It is responsible for the production and transmission of French-language radio programmes in Switzerland...

, he has travelled to Russia and various eastern countries, the Near East, the United States and Asia.

His essays include studies of André Malraux

André Malraux

André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...

 and Salman Rushdie, the latter titled L’affaire Rushdie (The Rushdie Affair), which garnered interest as it was the first study in French on the Indo-British author. In Le Paradoxe Balthus (The Balthus Paradox), he develops an iconoclastic argument based on Balthus

Balthus

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....

’s famously controversial painting, La Leçon de guitare (The Guitar Lesson).

Aubert contributes to various reviews in Switzerland and in France, among which art press and Le Passe Muraille. He is one of the Swiss correspondents of the "Research and Information Circle André Malraux" and he contributed to the André Malraux Dictionary (Paris, CNRS Editions, 2011 ISBN 978-2-271-06902-3
).

Selected works

• L'Absolu et la métamorphose, Genève, Labor et Fides, 1985 (ISBN 2-8309-0043-X)
• L'Affaire Rushdie, Paris, Le Cerf, 1990 (ISBN 2-204-04193-9)
• La Bataille de San Romano, Vevey, L'Aire bleue, 2006 (ISBN 2-88108-769-8)
• Malraux ou la Lutte avec l'ange, Genève, Labor et Fides, 2001 (ISBN 2-8309-1026-5)
• Le Paradoxe Balthus, Paris, La Différence, 2005 (ISBN 2-7291-1585-4)
• Dieu est-il violent? Paris, Bayard, 2008 (ISBN 978-2-227-47753-7)
• La Terrasse des éléphants Vevey, L'Aire, 2009 (ISBN 2-88108-894-5); 2011 (ISBN 9782881088940)
• Chronique des treize lunes. Journal 2008, Vevey, L'Aire, 2009 (ISBN 2-88108-893-7)

External links

• Lausanne Library Biographical notice
• La Différence (French publisher) Author file
• Malraux on the web Literary reference Site