Pierre Gascar

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Pierre Gascar (* as Pierre Fournier March 13, 1916 in Paris , † February 20, 1997 in Lons-le-Saunier ) was a French writer.

Gascar was the son of a small employee, lost his mother at an early age and grew up in a village in Lot-et-Garonne. He attended school in Agen and Versailles and graduated from high school. In 1937 he volunteered in the military and from 1939 was a soldier in World War II. In 1940 he was taken prisoner of war and was initially in Germany and after several attempts to escape to a prison camp near Rawa Ruska in the Ukraine, where he was used as a grave digger and in the search for Jews in hiding. In 1945 he was liberated by Soviet troops.

After the war he was only a journalist. He was a literary critic at France-Soir and traveled to China in 1954, where he reported for Le Monde and published a book in 1955 (Chine ouvert). He processed his memories of his time as a prisoner of war in Le temps de morts (Garden of the Dead) from 1953, for which he received the Prix ​​Goncourt (and also for his anthology of short stories Les Bêtes (The Animals) from 1953). Garden of the Dead is about a cemetery gardener who watches the trains to Auschwitz go by.

From 1953 he turned to writing and also worked for radio and television.

He wrote biographies (for example about Rimbaud and Nerval, Pasteur, Alexander von Humboldt, Buffon, Montesquieu), wrote about nature, wrote accompanying texts for illustrated books such as about Chambord Castle and San Marco, about China and published memoirs Portraits et souvenirs (1991 ) among other things about meetings with Michel Foucault , Louis Aragon and Jean Cocteau .

Gascar received the Grand Prix of the Académie Francaise and in 1994 the Prix Roger Caillois.

Works (selection)

  • The animals, Geneva: Kossodo 1956 (Les Bêtes 1953)
  • Garden of the Dead, Holle 1954 (Le temps de morts, 1953)
  • The Refugee, Kossodo Publishing House, Geneva 1963
  • The coral reef, Geneva: Kossodo 1960
  • The shadow of Robespierre, Claassen 1982
  • Le diable à Paris, 1985

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ roast scent of glory, Prix Goncourt , Der Spiegel, December 16, 1953
  2. ^ Obituary in the Spiegel, 1997, number 9
  3. ↑ Review in Spiegel, 1963, No. 10
personal data
SURNAME Gascar, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fournier, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1997
Place of death Lons-le-Saunier