Maurice G. Dantec: death of a rock novelist – The Point

His friend, the musician Richard Pinhas, announced in the late morning, this Monday, June 27 Maurice G. Dantec died of a heart attack in the night from Saturday to Sunday in Canada, where he had chosen to live in 1998. He had just celebrated his 57th birthday. Revealed in 1993 by a series of thrillers apocalyptic very inspired – Red Siren , The Roots of evil and Babylon babies (all three appeared in the collection black Series Gallimard) – this very deliberately provocative rock writer and had fallen somewhat into oblivion in the early 2000s

Flayed alive, the novelist did not conceal his deep psychological injuries related. to it from childhood dramas refused to speak, he was treating disorders, somehow, with narcotics. The son of a journalist and a seamstress, born in Grenoble but raised in Ivry-sur-Seine (94), Maurice G. Dantec had completed part of his schooling in high school Romain Rolland. The same year another writer, also came from the polar Tonino Benaquista. Should we see the influence of Jean-Bernard Pouy who was a supervisor in the same business? The two classmates had to devote to the genus “policeman”.

A journey hit

The course of Dantec, made of rupture and rants, had led to turn to be singer tower (rather than punk rock), editor in an advertising agency but also entrepreneur. He founded a small computer company, quickly scuttled. Passionate about technology, convinced to have prophetic gifts, novelist predicted the advent of ultra-violent world, worthy of the series Mad Max .

Patrick Raynal , her first publisher Gallimard recalls the manuscript of 1000 pages it placed a day in 1992, rue Sébastien Bottin. “It was very rich, too dense, tinged with science fiction rather than polar Anyway. Unprintable,” he told us last winter. Still, this pad showed a promising romantic temperament. A talent that commercial success will strengthen throughout the 90s.

A deep nihilism

Eternally dressed in black sunglasses even at night, willingly professing nihilistic theses same if he was tapped by a Catholic faith rather unorthodox, Maurice G. Dantec is then recognized by his peers. Prize awarded 813 Grand Prix imaginary but especially the elder Rosny price, the novelist risk testing in 2001 with theater of operations, general catastrophe laboratory (Gallimard ). A sort of diary indigestible but full of flashes. A book that also pierces its concern about the rise of radical Islam. A concern that quickly will turn into an obsession. In fact, this writer, formerly very committed to the left, will switch to the far right in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.

Rake by Albin Michel in 2005, he returned to fiction with Cosmos Incorporated , Dante evocation of the future (the film is set in 2057) where the company is dominated by machines. But sales tumbled. Prisoner of his addictions and psychoses leading to the gates of madness, Dantec publish four science fiction novels by the same publisher before participating in the Ring of adventure, a young publishing house that helps launch but with whom he will be angry in 2013. at that time, sick and weak, he struggles to complete his manuscripts. In May 2014, Inculte editions had published his last book: Residents

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