Even at the age of 88 Jean Mennerat hasn’t lost his enthusiasm for chess literature, a passion that took hold of him already at an early age and then accompanied him all his life. Quite recently he received with great pleasure the new Zukertort biography and he was already interested in publications of the Ken Whyld Association on which the work is still in progress. We believe we can promise to make him happy with new reading material from the pen of KWA members at least in the course of the next year. Until then we ask our French friend for a bit patience and we still wish him many happy and healthy returns of the day!
In the following we would like to remind of some "cornerstones" in Jean Mennerat’s life, supported by photos and illustrations he kindly put at our disposal.
On the occasion of Jean Mennerat’s 88th birthday an article was recently published: in "A French collector’s shining for chess books" (New in Chess 2005/5, p. 70-73) the author Christophe Bouton reports on his visit to Jean Mennerat and naturally tells some things about him. Needless to say that this article is a compulsory reading for all chess collectors!
You will find some photos of the library ("Ali Baba cave") on the next page.