“He who reads has wings that allow it to escape into the wonderful country … Do not read is crawling on the ground like a worm,” wrote Michel Tournier. The French writer has given wings to its readership before dying Monday night. Great French writer of the second half of the twentieth century, has died at age 91 at his home in Choisel, surrounded by his family.
Prix Goncourt for “Erl King”, the The writer was also a storyteller and novelist youth. young readers for generations have been marked by his novel “Friday or Wildlife.” Inspired by the book “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe, he tells how Robinson, sole survivor of a shipwreck, deploys ingenuity to survive on a deserted Pacific island.
A first novel at 42 years
Born in Paris in 1924, Michel Tournier later turned to literature. A philosopher by training, he begins to reside some years in Germany in reconstruction, until 1949, before returning to settle in Paris. He then offers his translator services for Plon and participates in cultural programs on radio and hosts a TV show on photography. At the time, he wrote already but too poor finds its texts. Only in 1967, at age 42, he finally published his first novel, “Friday or tears of the Pacific”.
The success comes quickly, as the esteem of the literary world. His book is decorated Grand Prize novel by the French Academy, and his second novel, “The Erl King” won the Prix Goncourt in 1970. Later, he joined the peer Editions Gallimard and became a member of the ‘Académie Goncourt. Now he can devote himself entirely to writing and published numerous texts for youth, as well as essays and articles.
Located for over half a century in the former presbytery of the village of Choisel, he gradually withdrew from the literary world at the end of his life.
“We lived round the clock with him, he could not remain alone for three months. As soon as he walked, he had a tendency to fall, we took care of him, “says Laurent Feliculis, his godson, the writer regarded as his adopted son. “In recent times, he did not want to fight, that was the old age”
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