Han Ryner

Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner (7 December 1861 – 6 February 1938), commonly known by the pen name Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist. He wrote for publications such as L'Art social, L'Humanité nouvelle, L'Ennemi du Peuple, L'Idée Libre de Lorulot; and L'En dehors and L'Unique of fellow anarchist individualist Émile Armand. His thought is mainly influenced by Stoicism and Epicureanism.

Biography

Henri Ner was born in Ghazaouet, in French Algeria, on 7 December 1861. After graduating from university, Ner began a career as a teacher, lecturing at secondary schools throughout Provence. He also became a Freemason, serving as Orator of the masonic lodge in Gap from 1884 to 1888. He later movied to Paris, where he taught at Lycée Charlemagne and Louis-le-Grand.

He became involved in socialist activism during the 1890s, publishing a manifesto in 1892 which called for bread to be brought under social ownership, and establishing a teachers' union in 1896. He adopted the pen name of Han Ryner in 1898, and began writing fiction. Over the course of his life, he wrote over 50 novels, plays and short stories, which gained a popular following in revolutionary circles. His first novel, Le Crime d’obéir (1900), was about a concientious objector and expressed an individualist philosophy that opposed all forms of coercion. He also contributed thousands of articles to anarchist and pacifist publications. As editor-in-chief of the newspaper Demain, Ryner became involved in the Dreyfus Affair. In 1900, he contributed to anarchist publications edited by Augustin Hamon, Émile Janvion and Francis Jourdain, and the following year, wrote a series of literary criticisms.