England–France–South America: Melanie Klein's correspondence (1951–1960)

Abstract

The history of psychoanalysis has paid much attention to Melanie Klein's personal trajectory -from Vienna to Budapest, Berlin and London- and to her "controversial discussions" with Anna Freud, in the 1940s. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the circulation and the uneven reception of her ideas in other regions. The 12 letters written by Melanie Klein that are reproduced in this issue are a resource that can be very helpful to expanding the historiography of her reception in both theFrench-speaking world and in South America. These historical processes were interconnected: the striking reception of Klein in Argentina boosted her expansion not only in Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, and Mexico, but also, in turn, in France. The developments which occurred in Buenos Aires in the mid-1940s constitute a unique case, as most of the founding members of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association very rapidly became Kleinian. Significantly,some of these analysts were the first to publish texts from a Kleinian orientation in the French language (e.g. Ángel Garma, Enrique Pichon-Rivière, Arminda Aberastury, and Marie Langer) in the early 1950s. However, Klein herself would still wait until 1959 (a year before her death) to see the translation of her first book The Psycho-Analysis of Children (1932) in print. Even then, it is remarkable that the translation of Klein?s first two books into French was partly made by European analysts who had trained in Buenos Aires: Marcelle Spira and Willy Baranger. In short, Klein's reception in France was as late and difficult as her implantation in Argentina had been unexpectedlyeasy and fruitful. The period of the correspondence featured stretches from 1951 to 1960, which encompasses the last decade of Klein's life.