For thirty years, Christian Bouchet’s Ars Magna has been “smuggling” nonconformist ideas into French publishing, with rare translations of figures from Ustryalov and Sardinha to Ilyin and Evola. In conversation with Alain de Benoist, Bouchet explains how the house grew out of radical-right activist publishing, why niche marketing keeps it profitable, and his plans for a global “Conservative Revolution” series and fresh historical context for Evola.
Interview conducted by Alain de Benoist
Originally published in Éléments no. 222, October-November 2026
Translated by Alexander Raynor
ÉLÉMENTS: What does Ars Magna mean?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. It means the “great art” or the “great work” [TN: the alchemical Magnum Opus, in French le grand œuvre], to be understood here as a great enterprise of smuggling nonconformist ideas.
ÉLÉMENTS: When did you found this publishing house, and with what aim?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. The house was founded in 1996, when Ars Magna succeeded ArS éditions for legal reasons. ArS itself had been founded in 1981. At the time, very presumptuously and under Evola’s influence, ArS stood for “Aristocratie spirituelle” (Spiritual Aristocracy). For a very long time, the job of these houses was activist publishing for the radical right: bulletins, reviews, pamphlets and so on. Then, at the turn of the century, the ties with movementism1 came to an end, and Ars Magna became a conventional publisher, though not quite like the others.
ÉLÉMENTS: Which publishers inspired you?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. Two Italian houses, Franco Freda’s Edizioni di Ar and Claudio Mutti’s All’insegna del Veltro. And also, probably even more so, two French houses of the far left: Spartacus, and Maspero with its legendary “Petite collection”2.
ÉLÉMENTS: You put out about fifteen titles a year. Financially speaking, how do you manage to keep up that pace?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. We have ramped up in recent years: 16 titles in 2022, 19 in 2023, only ten in 2024, but 18 last year and probably 20 by the end of this year. All of this costs money. Printing, of course, but also buying foreign rights, since we translate a great deal, plus translation fees, stock management and ever-rising postage costs. But I’m not complaining: Ars Magna’s balance sheets are healthy. Contrary to what people think, ideologically “radical” publishing is doing well. Recent studies show that green and far-left houses are in very good financial health. Why shouldn’t the same be true of our outfits? It is all a question of good management and, above all, of niche marketing. You have to accept that you are aiming at the few and not the general public. Then you build a political and intellectual community around yourself and grow it through your editorial work.
Ars Magna stands out for the quality of its work and the great rarity of the texts it publishes, so it has a loyal and growing clientele. A recent survey of that clientele showed that its age pyramid is balanced (24% are under 35), but also that it is exclusively male (only 5% of buyers are women). Most of the books I publish: if I don’t publish them, who will? Who could be crazy enough to pay to have Ustryalov, Ilyin, Sardinha, Szálasi and the rest translated, to launch an edition of the complete works of Georges Valois, or to consider reissuing Charles Maurras’s Enquête sur la monarchie (Inquiry into Monarchy)? But in return, I am the only one selling these often sought-after authors, whose readership, though small, is not negligible.
ÉLÉMENTS: You recently reissued Armin Mohler’s great book on the German Conservative Revolution [TN: Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932; the French edition is La Révolution conservatrice en Allemagne, 1918–1932]. Do you intend to revive the “Révolution conservatrice” (Conservative Revolution) series that the now-defunct Éditions Pardès launched thirty years ago?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. Revive it exactly as it was, no. Rather, I want to take up the idea and widen the field of the Conservative Revolution to a global scale. I have already begun publishing the Russian Ivan Ilyin in this series. In 2028 it will also bring out, for example, the Austrian Karl Anton von Rohan, the Portuguese António Sardinha and the Japanese Ikki Kita.
ÉLÉMENTS: Among your recent publications there are also several works by or about Julius Evola. The Evola vogue seems to have faded somewhat among French readers. Do you think you can revive it?
CHRISTIAN BOUCHET. The idea that Evola could “be in vogue,” or become so again if he ever was, makes me shudder. It is so very un-… Evolian! Evola’s “major” texts have all been published, but without any real effort to place them in their biographical or historical context. To remedy this, I published Andrea Scarabelli’s monumental biography of him, studies of what the Ur Group really was, and various miscellanies by the Baron. These recently included all his articles published in the German press and the texts of the lectures he gave in the Reich. At the end of the year I plan to bring out the collection of his articles published in Diorama Filosofico3 and, probably in 2028, those published in La Torre4. All of this allows him to be better known, and therefore better understood.
See: www.editions-ars-magna.com
1TN: Mouvementisme is a piece of French political jargon, used especially on the radical right. It means the world of activist movements: small organizations and groupuscules, street activism, leafleting, militant newsletters, and the constant founding, merging and splitting of little groups. It sits in contrast to two other ways of doing politics. One is the party route, meaning electoral politics such as the Front National / Rassemblement National. The other is the metapolitical route, meaning work on ideas and culture, which is what GRECE and Éléments have always claimed to do.
TN: François Maspero’s Petite collection Maspero, the inexpensive paperback series that was a mainstay of the post-1968 French left.
TN: the cultural page Evola edited in Roberto Farinacci’s daily Il Regime Fascista, 1934–1943.
4TN: Evola’s short-lived 1930 review, shut down by the Fascist authorities.