Family Name: Venture de Paradis
First Name: Jean-Michel
Birth Date: Wed, May 06, 1739
Birth Place: Marseille
Death Date: Mon, May 13, 1799
Death Place: Acre
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Cairo 1765 1774
Place From To
Tunis 1778 1784
Place From To
Paris 1784 1796
Personal info:
Education

He was born into a family of interpreters and went to Paris at the age of 13 with a scholarship to train as an interpreter in Eastern languages at the college of Louis le Grand.
Career

He spent his whole career as an official interpreter and then consul. In 1757 he was sent to work with Count Vergennes, the French ambassador in Constantinople, and then to Saida in 1763; from 1767 he was interpreter and translator in Cairo. He quickly acquired an excellent reputation, and in 1777-78 accompanied the Baron de Tott in his tour of French factories in the Levant. He was later chancellor, than consul, in Tunis, Algiers and Smyrna, as well as being Secretary-Interpreter at the Royal Library, when he mixed in literary circles and was consulted for his expertise. He was later Professor at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris during the Revolution. He was persuaded to join Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 and died of dysentery during the retreat from Acre.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Venture worked as official interpreter and translator in various parts of the Levant and North Africa.

He translated several historical works, as well as poetry and fables from Arabic into French,as well as extracts from a treatise on medicine, but none were published during his lifetime, apart from a couple of short extracts in the Magazine encyclopédique in 1795..

secondary bibliography references

Sibylle Jauffret-Derville, ‘Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis : drogman et orientaliste 1739-1799’, Aix-Marseille, 2011 (PhD Diss Université Aix-Marseille 1).

Joseph Cuoq, Introduction to Venture de Paradis, Tunis et Alger au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1983, p. 13-21.

Jean Gaulmier, ed, La Zubda Kashf al-mamalik de Khalil az-Zahiri, translated by Venture de Paradis, Beirut, 1950 (includes a life of Venture)

Ann Thomson, 'Raynal, Venture de Paradis et la Barbarie', Dix-huitième Siècle, 15 (1983), p. 329-33.

Azzedine Guellouz, 'Analyse idéologique d'un projet d'expédition d'Egypte: le projet de Venture de Paradis, orientaliste philosophe (1780)', Cahiers de Tunisie, 31 (1973), p. 123-51.

Translations

  • Zubda Kachf al-mamālik

  • Translation Title: Zubda Kachf al-mamālik
  • Original Author: Khalil ez-Zahiri
  • Original title: Zubda Kachf al-mamālik
  • lang: Arabic
  • Translation: Zubda Kachf al-mamālik
  • Publisher: Imprimerie Catholique
  • N° Editions: 1
  • Pub. Place: Beirut
  • Pub. Date: 1949
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    The translation was left in manuscript, B.N.F., N.A.F., 3160. The 1950 edition by Jean Gaulmier is the only one

  • al–Maqāmāt al–ḥarīriyah

  • Translation Title: Les séances de Ḥarīrī
  • Original Author: Abu Muhammad al–Qasim ibn 'Ali al–Hariri
  • Original title: al–Maqāmāt al–ḥarīriyah
  • lang: Arabic
  • Translation: Les séances de Ḥarīrī
  • Publisher: Almqvist och Wiksell
  • N° Editions: 1
  • Pub. Place: Stockholm
  • Pub. Date: 1963
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    The manuscript left by Venture de Paradis (Bibliothèque nationale, N.A.F. 9136, was edited in 1964 by A? Attia. This is the only edition.

  • Ghazevvat Âroudg vve Khair-ed-din

  • Translation Title: les Pieux exploits d'Â : roudg et de Khair-ed-din, fondateurs de l'Odgeac d'Alger
  • Original title: Ghazevvat Âroudg vve Khair-ed-din
  • lang: Arabic
  • Translation: les Pieux exploits d'Â : roudg et de Khair-ed-din, fondateurs de l'Odgeac d'Alger
  • Lang: French
calamaio

By:

  • Ann Thomson