Born in 1941 in Belgium, the academician François Weyergans died on Monday at 77 years old. Elected under the Dome in 2009, at the headquarters of Maurice Rheims, of which he was near, the novelist eccentric – famous for his gifts of procrastination – had obtained the Goncourt prize in 2005 for Three days at my mother’s (Grasset), in front of Michel Houellebecq ( The possibility of an island ).
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movie buff and filmmaker, a long time collaborator of the Cahiers du cinema , François Weyergans, a friend of the host tv Jean-Claude Delarue, had made his grand entrance in literature in 1973, with The Fool , portrait barely disguised the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan that he had attended (prix Roger-Nimier), and then had received in 1983 the award Meridian of the four juries for the Raft of the medusa (Gallimard). Nine years later, he received the prix Renaudot with The Dementia of the boxer , which some consider to this day as his best book published.
It was noted in 2011, during his reception to the French Academy, arriving late, hustling and the protocol. In a speech surprising and heterodox, he had a jumble mentioned or quoted Alfred de Vigny (holder, in his time, in the same chair), Edmond Rostand, Madeleine Renaud, Samuel Beckett, Jean Cocteau (in a confession, he was then admitted: «Without him, I wouldn’t be here»), René Char, Maurice Béjart (to which he had devoted a documentary, in his youth), Hemingway, the actors of the kabuki theater, Louise de Vilmorin and Vaugelas, said «the clerk of the use».
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Jean d’ormesson, wrote in Le Figaro march 22, 2012, at the time of the publication of his novel Royal Romance, the last book that he had published: «François Weyergans is a depressive past master in the art of digression. Three days at my mother’s , Goncourt prize 2005, was already in that vein with a blazing talent. Royal Romance follows the same path with the same happiness. One of the characteristics of Weyergans, become almost legendary in the small world of publishing, is its difficulty to write. As Blondin once, Weyergans was ending almost always his novels in print in the provinces where the publisher of the enclosing so that it completes its work.
