Alice Becker-Ho

Alice Becker-Ho (also Alice Debord) (Born August 6, 1941), is the author of Les Princes du Jargon (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), as well as numerous works of poetry.

Becker-Ho was born in Shanghai, her mother Chinese, her father, originally from Alsace-Lorraine, a territory under dispute between France and Germany until the end of the First World War, claimed French citizenship. In 1947 her father moved the family to France.

Later, in 1963 Becker-Ho became involved in the Situationist International. She began what would be a long lasting relationship with Guy Debord, they married August 5, 1972. Together they published Le Jeu de la Guerre (The Game of War) in 1987, an expanded edition of which was republished by éditions Gallimard, Paris, in 2006. An English edition appeared in 2008. She was his partner until his death in 1994.

Becker-Ho has published numerous works of poetry in French: D'azur au triangle vidé de sable (Cognac: Le Temps qu'il fait, 2000); Paroles de Gitans (Paris: Albin Michel, 2000); Au Pays du sommeil paradoxal (Cognac: Le Temps qu'il fait, 2000). She has written a rigorous account of the various slang speech in Western Europe in her trilogy Les Princes du Jargon (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), translated as The Princes of Jargon by John McHale (Lampeter & New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), L’Essence du Jargon, and Du Jargon, héritier en bastardie (Paris: Gallimard). She also authored Au Pays du Sommeil Paradoxal (translated as In Slumberpuzzleland) and Là s'en vont les seigneuries (an account about her travel with Guy Debord in Rello, Spain, with photos by Emmanuel Rioufol, 2003).

In 2014, she published Le premier ghetto ou l'exemplarité vénitienne (a book about Venetian Ghetto).

After Debord's death in 1994, Alice Becker-Ho has taken up assembling and publishing his letters.