Melinda speaks to Eugene Ionseco at Oxford in 1974

Eugene Ionesco (1909 - 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright, and one the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theater.



Ionesco was born in 1912 in Romania of a French mother and Romanian father; his formative years were spent in France. In 1925 he returned to Romania when he learnt the “native” language. He subsequently taught French. Does a perfect knowledge of two languages enrich one’s appreciation of language in general?

“Bilingualism involves a sort of intellectual acrobatics. I think that it is indispensable for my work as a writer. But I don’t believe that different languages represent totally different visions of life, nor that nationality is an isolating factor. From my experience as a bilingual speaker, I would say that there can be an exact translation from on language to another, because there is a commonly shared structure which is permanent and universal. Although children learn a different language depending on where they were born, nevertheless the process is the same in all cases. For we all have the same anxieties and ask the same questions; and nationality, like politics, is secondary to the central problem of man’s existential condition.”

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Laura Vidler's introduction to Melinda Camber Porter in Conversation with Octavio Paz

Laura Vidler, chair of the department of Spanish, University of South Dakota, Vermilion, SD, introduces the "Creative Conversations Series" between Nobel Laureate/poet Octavio Paz and artist/journalist Melinda Camber Porter.

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Melinda in Conversation with Octavio Paz

Now available from Blake Press: Melinda Camber Porter in Conversation with Octavio Paz

“The interview you are about to read, conducted in 1983, eight years before Paz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the record of a conversation between two spirited and original poets. Melinda is interested in Octavio’s cosmology—at first he retreats: “That’s a big question, cosmology…” he replies, but throughout the course of the interview she coaxes this out of him, artist to artist. They discuss history, psychology, the creative process, politics, eroticism, the accuracy of Milton’s Hell, and they comment on an eclectic mix of writers—though again and again the conversation returns to the poetic.

“Paz imagines not only using language, but being on it, as a wave: “I can see myself swimming in the language.” As Melinda moves down the street she sometimes becomes the words she imagines—she too is swept into the wave. Paz observes that in his work he hopes to transcend the limits of reason; the great problem of our time, he notes, is the separation of reason and the unconscious. As a young writer Melinda wonders where intellect alone will take us, and this leads the older writer to debate the triumph of rationalism, sexual repression, and the nature of love. As a reader it is a delight to follow their thought, to ride the wave that carries us to the shore of language.”

- From the introduction by Scott Chaskey

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Ishmael Reed on Melinda

“Porter’s poetry and paintings have a soft, lyrical quality.”

                                        - Ishmael Reed



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Melinda interviews Alain Robbe-Grillet for Through Parisian Eyes

Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 - 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker.

Despite self-imposed periods of abstinence before the completion of a film, Alain Robbe-Grillet is well known for the bouts of theorizing that follow.

"The camera records surfaces and the 'meaning' of the images does not interest me. I do not use symbolism in my films."

"My films are not erotically stimulating. There is a complete difference between my film and a pornographic film. They aim to excite the audience. I intend to deprive these images of excitement and hope to reveal their banality."

"I never make films for a particular audience, and when I started directingI felt my films did not cater to any existing public. But I seem to have created one myself."

Read the full excerpt from Through Parisian Eyes here.

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Melinda Camber Porter in Conversation with Roger Vadim

Roger Vadim (1928 - 2000) was a French screenwriter, film director, producer, author, and actor.

ROGER VADIM is bored with the image he has created for himself. He feels that he has lost sight of what he wants to do by fulfilling the demands of producers, distributors and stars. In the 20 years since he directed his first film, And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot, he has known only too well how to sell himself, his wives and there by his films. He calls himself someone who has been typecast too long.

“It was very difficult to me to liberate myself from commercial success. When you've made a successful film, producers want to repeat the formula,” he says, talking in a mixture of French and English (although he has a perfect command of the latter).

At 46, he had made his first film for which he is willing to take full responsibility. La Jeune Fille Assassinee is, according to Vadim, an exploration of the problems of the new freedom that women have today. He has scripted, directed, and produced it and also stars in it. Its heroine, Charlotte, played by a new actress Sirpa Lane, is “young, beautiful and brilliant and feels that she can do whatever she likes”. But Vadim shows that it isn't that simple: she ends up brutally murdered.

Read the full article from The Observer here.

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