User:Alan Mattingly/Joseph Ribas

=Joseph Ribas= Joseph Ribas is a French writer, illustrator, columnist and teacher.

Principal works
Ribas has made notable contributions to French writings on the Pyrenees mountain range, which straddles the frontier between France and Spain. Some of these works (and others by Ribas) are illustrated by himself.

Robinson Crusoe in the Pyrenees
In Robinson Crusoé dans les Pyrénées (1995) Ribas traces the route across the Pyrenees mountains, from Pamplona to Toulouse, which Daniel Defoe possibly imagined for Robinson Crusoe in chapters 19 and 20 of Defoe's famous 1719 novel. During this winter crossing, Defoe depicts Crusoe and his companions as having a terrible battle with 300 ravenous wolves. Ribas speculates as to whether Defoe based his description of Crusoe's journey on his own possible travels in Spain and France. But he accepts that no definite conclusion on his point can yet be reached. This work by Ribas has been referred to subsequently by various authors - see examples below.

Canigou
Ribas's Canigou, montagne sacrée des Pyrénées (1993 & 2003, with illustrations by the author; also a version in Catalan, 1996) is a comprehensive narrative about the Canigou massif, which rises to an altitude of 2,785 metres at the far eastern end of the Pyrenees mountain range, and which is a mountain revered by Catalans. Ribas's book is cited (including in official publications) as a work of reference on the Canigou massif.

Rudyard Kipling described Canigou as "a magician among mountains". Kipling is one of the writers and travellers whose fascination and encounters with Canigou are depicted in Ribas's Témoignages retrouvés - L'aventure du Canigou (1996). This book inspired Curt Wittlin's work (in Catalan) De la Maladeta al Canigó : cinquanta visions del Pirineu Català.

Ribas is seen as an authority on the subject of the Canigou massif, by public bodies and by other writers.

Pyrénéisme
For his writings on the Pyrenees mountains, Ribas has been cited as being among the "great names" of pyrénéisme. This term was first coined by the French author and publisher Henri Beraldi in his work Cent ans aux Pyrénées. Whatever else pyrénéisme might be taken to mean today, it retains at it core the acts of "exploring, experiencing and writing about" the Pyrenees mountains.

In his Petit Précis de Pyrénéisme, Ribas summarises the works over two centuries of prominent authors on the Pyrenees, including Henry Russell and Franz Schrader. Ribas's work has been cited as "unveiling in its entirety" the "epic" of pyrénéisme.

Other works
Ribas has written innumerable articles for the regional newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, for the specialist review Pyrénées, and for other journals.

He has published several other books (see list below) - on his profession of teaching, and on the Pyrenees and Roussillon in particular.

Haute randonnée pyrénéenne
The first guidebook on the Pyrennes high-level walking trail, written by Georges Véron, was published in 1974. But Véron has acknowledged that Ribas, "the poet who sees beyond the horizon", was the inspiration behind the Haute randonnée pyrénéenne project. Joseph Ribas traced out a possible route, from Banyuls to Hendaye, in 1968.

Biographical information
Joseph Ribas was born in 1931 in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque, a village in the coastal plain near Perpignan, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, France. His parents were immigrants from Spain who crossed the frontier seeking work in the vineyards of Roussillon

Joseph Ribas and his wife Mireille live in Canohès, near Perpignan, France.

Distinctions


Ribas led a career as a teacher. In 1977, for his services to education, he was awarded the title of Officier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

In 2004, a public library bearing the name of Joseph Ribas was opened in the commune of Saint-Marsal (Aspres, Pyrénées-Orientales, France).

In March 2021, the Munich-based artistic association Dialog - Neues Münchner Kunstforum e.V. , in collaboration with the publishing house Otto Sagner, awarded the "Prix Dominante" to Joseph Ribas for his literary work as a whole. This prize, created in 2011 and awarded annually, is for "outstanding discoveries and the development of new aesthetic principles in literature or music". The name of the prize is taken from that of a German - Russian almanac for literature and art that has been published in Munich since 2006.

==List of works by Joseph Ribas ==

Les terres veuves, Bordeaux, Les nouveaux cahiers de jeunesse, 1961.

Marius Noguès, Rodez, Subervie, 1973.

Lecture, discipline d’éveil, avec Raymond Clais, Paris Magnard 1975.

Faire vivre un livre en classe, avec Raymond Clais, Paris, Hatier, Éditions de l’Amitié, 1975.

Sentiers et randonnées des Pyrénées, Paris, Fayard, 1977.

Sentiers et randonnées du Roussillon, Paris, Fayard, 1978.

Sentiers et randonnées du Languedoc, Paris Fayard 1980.

Les grandes heures du Club Alpin Français dans les Pyrénées, Préfaces des Tomes I, II, III, Fayence, Sirius 1983.

Mes Pyrénées, chroniques, Fayence, Sirius, 1985.

Les chemins de Garonne, Toulouse, Milan, 1990.

El Canigó, Història i mite, Vic, Eumo Editorial, 1996.

Canigou, montagne sacrée des Pyrénées, Toulouse, Loubatières, 1993, réédition en 2003.

Robinson Crusoé dans les Pyrénées, avec les textes de Daniel Defoe, illustrations de Jean-Claude Pertuzé, Toulouse, Loubatières, 1995.

Témoignages retrouvés - L’aventure du Canigou, Ibos, Randonnées pyrénéennes, 1996 (published with the support of the Centre Régional des Lettres Midi-Pyrénées).

Petit précis de pyrénéisme, Toulouse, Loubatières, 1998.

Roussillon au cœur, Toulouse, Loubatières, 2003.

''Caram ! Aixó me mira'', avec Pere Verdaguer, illustrations de Jean-Claude Pertuzé, Toulouse, Loubatières, 2004.

Michel Maurette, anthologie, L’Olivier, 2006.

Pyrénées le désir de voyage, 110 illustrations de l’auteur, Pau, Monhélios, 2009.

Joseph Ribas also participated in the publication in 1996 of Lady Fortescue une aristocrate anglaise aux Pyrénées en 1818 (Loubatières, Portet-sur-Garonne), which contained 76 drawings made in the Pyrenees during the spring of 1818 by Henrietta-Ann Fortescue (1763-1841). The illustrations in this book were preceded by introductory articles by Pierre Tucco-Chala, Hélène Saule-Sorbé and Joseph Ribas (Chemins d'Images).