The French writer Dominique Lapierre, in June 2008 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.CRISTÓBAL MANUEL
The French writer Dominique Lapierre, known above all for books such as
The City of Joy
or Is
Paris Burning?
and
Oh, Jerusalem
, made together with Larry Collins and which sold millions of copies, has died at the age of 91, as confirmed by his widow to the French publication
Var-matin
.
A novelist, essayist and journalist, he was a reporter for Paris Match
magazine for many years ,
first in the USSR and then in India.
It was precisely from that experience that the inspiration arose for perhaps his most famous and successful novel,
The City of Joy.
, published in 1985, set in a suburb of Calcutta and built, according to Lapierre himself, based on what he himself saw on the outskirts of the Indian city.
The author allocated part of the income generated by the book to the fight against the same poverty that he described in the work.
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The book had such an impact that, according to
Il Corriere della Sera
, many young people decided to volunteer or study Medicine after reading it.
And that the same newspaper remembers that, when he raised the project, Lapierre received a skeptical response from his editor.
In short, that the life of a rickshaw driver, a girl who collects coal or a Swiss nurse or an English tie salesman living in India would not interest anyone.
Precisely the opposite happened.
And the writer, who was already enjoying the fame generated by his literary reconstructions along with Larry Collins, received the final push towards glory.
Born in 1931 in Châtelaillon, France, into a family of diplomats, he suffered World War II from Paris and undertook a trip to Mexico, the United States and Canada at the end of the forties, from which he published his first book,
One dollar each .
thousand kilometers,
published in Spain by Ediciones B. The title was based on the reality of his journey, an adventure of 32,000 kilometers with just 32 dollars in his pocket.
In 1965, together with Collins, he published
Is Paris Burning?
(Planet), detailed reconstruction of the days before the liberation of the French capital during World War II, made from dozens of testimonies.
Precisely, the rigor of the investigation and documentation, together with the literary quality, were some of the most celebrated hallmarks of the works of Lapierre and Collins, a correspondent for
Newsweek magazine.
This was also the case for
Oh, Jerusalem (Planet),
once again co-written by four hands, focused in this case on the birth of the State of Israel and still considered one of the best sources for understanding one of the most troubled areas on the planet.
Other of his best-known books are
Tonight, freedom
—about the birth of India and Pakistan and which involved four years of work and a journey of more than 250,000 kilometers in search of places and testimonies— and...
Or you will wear mourning for me —
about the life of the bullfighter El Cordobés, where the Civil War, Francoism and bullfighting parade in the background—
(both on Planet, with Collins).
In the seventies, the reporter couple became a key reference in narrative journalism.
And, incidentally, they achieved millionaire income.
After the success of
The City of Joy,
translated into more than 30 languages, Lapierre founded the NGO of the same name, dedicated to collecting funds to fight poverty in India.
And he strengthened his already powerful link with the country even more: after a meeting with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he launched a long series of initiatives and associations to support Indian health care, as well as the most marginalized groups in the country: patients with leprosy, children with disabilities, single women.
His activist profile came together and mixed with that of a writer, who gave conferences throughout Europe and thus raised new funds for the most needy Indians.
Il Corriere della Sera
He cites an estimate by Lapierre himself, according to which he would have devoted up to $65 million to his social battles.
Dedicated to inequality and injustice in India
, Era Midnight in Bhopal,
co-written with Spanish Javier Moro, tells the true story of a cloud of toxic gas that caused thousands of deaths in the Indian city of Bhopal after escaping from an American factory.
On June 10, 2012, a fall caused head trauma and slipped into a coma, from which he awoke to undergo lengthy rehabilitation.
He did not write again, but his books had already remained in the memory of millions of readers.