Volume 36, Number 11 · June 29, 1989
The Strange Case of Paul de Man
By Denis Donoghue
Wartime Journalism: 1939–1943
by Paul de Man, edited by Werner Hamacher, by Neil Hertz, by Thomas Keenan
University of Nebraska Press, 399 pp., $15.95 (paper)
Responses: On Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism
edited by Werner Hamacher, edited by Neil Hertz, edited by Thomas Keenan
University of Nebraska Press, 477 pp., $19.95 (paper)
Critical Writings: 1953–1978
by Paul de Man, edited and with an introduction by Lindsay Waters
University of Minnesota Press, 246 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Reading de Man Reading
edited by Lindsay Waters, edited by Wlad Godzich
University of Minnesota Press, 312 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Paul de Man was born in Antwerp on December 6, 1919, second son of Robert and Magdalena de Man. They were a comfortable, upper-middle-class family. Robert was a manufacturer of medical instruments, and especially of X-ray machines. So far as we know, Paul's childhood and adolescent years were fairly placid until June 20, 1936, when his brother Hendrik was killed in an accident. On the anniversary of his death, a year later, Magdalena hanged herself. In October 1937 Paul enrolled in the Ecole Polytechnique at the Université Libre de Bruxelles as a student of engineering. In 1938 he switched to chemistry. But his main interests were in philosophy, politics, and literature.
Review, 7972 words
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