Jacques Pimpaneau

Jacques Pimpaneau, born September 12, 1934, is a French sinologist. A specialist in Chinese language and civilization, he discovered China in 1958 and, unlike many intellectuals of his time, he was never fascinated by the Maoist regime. An independent personality, close to the Situationists and anarchists, he has always distinguished himself from academic Sinology. A scholarship holder, he studied at Peking University from 1958 to 1960. Returning to the West, he became a professor at the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations1, where he held the chair of Chinese language and literature from 1963 to 1999 From 1968 to 1971, he was seconded to teach at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was a colleague of the Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans (the future Simon Leys). Jacques Pimpaneau was at the center of meetings between certain Sinologists and radical Situationist theorists, such as his former pupil, René Viénet. Jacques Pimpaneau took part in the documentary in 1976: Chinese, another effort to be revolutionaries! whose director is René Viénet. In 1972, he created the Kwok On Museum (Asian Arts and Folk Traditions) in Paris, the collections of which were bequeathed to the Musée de l'Orient in Lisbon. He was Jean Dubuffet's secretary. He was also close to Georges Bataille at the end of his existence, being one of the few present at the time of his death and burial in Vézelay in 1962. Since 1983, he has written dozens of historical works, bibliographies and novels . In 2019, he donated his personal library to the Chinese fund of the municipal library of Lyon.