BOREL, JACQUES

born Dec. 17, 1925, Paris, Fr. French writer, translator, and critic. The son of a civil servant, Borel was educated at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1949, and for several years was an English teacher at various lyces in France (195267) and a visiting professor at various colleges and universities in the United States (196683). His principal novel, L'Adoration (1965; The Adoration; Eng. trans. The Bond), which won the Prix Goncourt, was a semiautobiographical account of a son's relationship to a widowed mother and had Proustian or Joycean characteristics in presenting vast details of events and thoughts. This work was followed by a sequel, Le Retour (1970; The Return) and by other novels, books of poetry, and criticisms. He also edited the complete works of Paul Verlaine (195962) and translated poems by James Joyce (1967).