The writer Bernard Pingaud, co-founder of the Writers' Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 96, announced the House of Writers of which he had been one of the animators and the president from 1990 to 1993.
Born in Paris on October 12, 1923, Bernard Pingaud published a dozen essays and as many novels, including My beautiful ship in 1946, The Prisoner in 1958, The Voice of his master in 1973 or Adieu Kafka in 1989. He does not hide not to have been influenced by the far right and to have supported the Vichy regime, especially with his high school friend the very farrier Chris Marker. A line from which he moved away then to approach the left.
In 1960, Bernard Pingaud signed the Manifesto of 121, defending the right to rebellion during the Algerian war. In 1968, with Jean-Pierre Faye, Michel Butor, Guillevic, Henri Deluy and a few others, he founded the Union of Writers, of which he was one of the main organizers until 1973. Until 1979 he led the group studies of the Secretariat for Cultural Action of the Socialist Party. The Writers' Union demanded from the start the creation of a House of writers. Born in 1983. Bernard Pingaud was its president from 1990 to 1993.
Secretary of debates in the National Assembly, cultural advisor to the French Embassy in Cairo, he played above all a major role in the service of writers, books and reading, presiding in 1981, at the request of Jack Lang , the commission for reflection on the policy of books and reading, then writing in 1989 a new report on the development of reading, at the request of Jean Gattegno.
