Adieu, I.F. Clarke

[Lensman]

J'apprends avec une immense tristesse la disparition du chercheur britannique I.F. Clarke, avec lequel j'ai correspondu assez longuement (on s'échangeait des livres de vieilles anticipations...) et qui a eu la gentillesse d'écrire une préface à l'ouvrage de Guy Costes et moi-même, "Les Terres Creuses".
C'était le plus grand spécialiste mondial des guerres futures en fiction (et aussi des histoires futures, ce qui est un autre domaine).
Pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, le jeune I.F. Clarke a passé son temps à casser les codes de l'Axe et déchiffrer les messages de l'ennemi. Le genre de type auquel on doit une reconnaissance toute particulière.
Adieu, Ignatius.
Oncle Joe


I.F. Clarke, bibliographer and scholar of future-war fictions died on
November 5th. According to his wife Margaret, he survived an operation
to amputate his left leg in August, but was not strong enough to fight
off various complications that followed, and spent his last few weeks
in a nearby nursing home.

Born 1918, he worked in Intelligence during World War Two and studied
at Liverpool University, where his DA and MA theses were on "the Tale
of the Future". He taught at the University of Strathclyde until 1964.
Among his achievements were editor of the bibliography Tale of the
future, from the beginning to the present day (Library Association,
1961, 3rd. Rev ed 1978), Voices Prophesying War (O .U. P. 1966,
rev.1992, two volumes of "Future-war" stories from Liverpool
University Press (1995, 1996), and the 8-volume British Future Fiction
(Chatto, 2001). His latest work was (with his wife Margaret), a
translation of Emile Souvestre's 1846 Le Monde tel qu'il sera (The
World as it Shall Be) which was published by Wesleyan University Press
in 2004.

In 1974 he was awarded the Pilgrim Award for distinguished
contribution to the study of sf by the Science Fiction Research
Association.

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Andy Sawyer