François Weyergans

François Weyergans (* 2. August 1941 in Etterbeek , Brussels-Capital Region , † 27 May 2019 in Paris ) was a from Belgium originating writers French and film and theater artists.

Career

The son of a Belgian father and a French mother wanted to become a film director and went to a film school in Paris in 1961. There he wrote for the magazine Cahiers du cinéma and made his first, mostly documentary short films. In the 1970s, the films Maladie mortelle and Couleur chair were made (with Dennis Hopper and Bianca Jagger, among others ).

Because there was no success, Weyergans turned to writing: in 1973 the satirical novel Le pitre was published , the preparation of a therapy by the famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan . The book met with a positive response in the French feature pages and was awarded the Prix Roger-Nimier.

With his subsequent novels, Weyergans established himself as one of the outstanding stylists of French literature. His playful, self-reflective and self-deprecating narrative style led to comparisons with Laurence Sterne , Jean Paul , but also with Woody Allen . In 1997 the semi-autobiographical novel Franz et François was published , which made him known to a wider audience.

In 2005, his novel Trois jours chez ma mère was awarded the most famous French literary prize, the Prix ​​Goncourt . The decision caused some controversy because the jury preferred it to the controversial novel La possibilité d'une île by Michel Houellebecq . In 1992 Weyergans' novel La Démence du boxeur had already received the Prix ​​Renaudot and so Weyergans was one of the few who received both this award and the Prix Goncourt ( Philippe Hériat had already done this before ).

Weyergans described himself as a “cineast who doesn't make films”: “I prefer the novel as a means of expression. It is more precise, more subtle and richer than a film. "

On July 26th, 2009 he was elected to the Académie française . He took up the Fauteuil 32 on June 16, 2011.

Weyergans died in May 2019 at the age of 77.

Works (selection)

• Salomé 1969 (released 2005)
• Le Pitre 1973
• Les Figurants 1980
• Macaire le Copte 1981
• Le Radeau de la Méduse 1983
• Rire et pleurer 1990 (German weeping and laughing . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1992)
• La Démence du boxeur 1992 ( Eng . ›The Boxer Madness‹. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1994)
• Franz et François 1997 (German Franz + François . Dumont, Cologne 1999) about the similarity of the name with his father
• Trois jours chez ma mère 2005 (German. Three days with my mother . Dumont, Cologne 2006)

literature

• François Weyergans , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 21/2006 of May 27, 2006, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Literature by and about François Weyergans in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)