Disappearance of the writer Pierre Guyotat, at the age of 80

The writer Pierre Guyotat, winner of the Prix Médicis in 2018, died on the night of Thursday to Friday at the age of 80, his family announced Friday at AFP. He died "in the night from Thursday to Friday" in the hospital, his nephew Florent Guyotat told AFP.

First to react, the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang expressed his “immense sorrow” after the disappearance of his “very dear friend”. "This literary goldsmith, a true virtuoso, poet possessed by words, was a unique artist, determined and demanding," Jack Lang posted on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Preferring discretion to light, the writer will remain as the author of two major works of French literature of the twentieth century: Tomb for five hundred thousand soldiers (1967), perhaps the largest book on the war in Algeria (adapted by Antoine Vitez at Chaillot in 1981) and Éden, Éden, Éden (1970), book deemed pornographic by the French authorities at the time, prohibited from advertising, display and sale to minors.

Born in 1940, Pierre Guyotat published in 1967 Tomb for five hundred thousand soldiers , which mixes sex and war and knows a great impact. General Massu had the book banned in French barracks in Germany. He binds with Philippe Sollers and frequents the group "Tel Quel", from which he will be detached from 1973.

In May 1968, Pierre Guyotat created with Nathalie Sarraute and Michel Butor the Union of writers. In 1970, appeared Eden, Eden, Eden , prefaced by Michel Leiris, Roland Barthes and Philippe Sollers. It is immediately prohibited from advertising and selling to minors by the Ministry of the Interior. The world of letters rises. A petition of support is signed by the biggest names in literature, Pasolini, Foucault, Sartre, Genet, Kessel, Blanchot, Calvino, Derrida, Duras, Robbe-Grillet, etc. However, the literary community is divided on the value of the work. The jury of the Medici, Claude Simon, future Nobel Prize in literature, defends the candidacy of Guyotat with passion, but Jean Cayrol, who had nevertheless launched when he was 18, violently opposes it. Guyotat misses the Médicis prize by one voice. Claude Simon resigned with a crash ... The ban was not lifted until 1981. Guyotat then continued his work, rich in several texts, interviews and plays.

In 2004, he donated his archives to the BNF. A fortnight ago, Pierre Guyotat had already received the price of the French language, a literary price created by the city of Brive to reward a personality whose " work has contributed in an important way to illustrate the quality and the beauty of the French language".

Nearly 50 years after the controversy over Eden, Eden, Eden , the path of Pierre Guyotat crosses the Medici route: The Idiot is sacred in 2018. Extension of Training (2007), it is the autobiographical account of entering adulthood. Pierre Guyotat remembers the "search for the female body" , the "conflictual relationship with what we call the" real "", the "constant tension towards Art and greater than human" and the “permanent rebellion drive” that accompanied him from his 18 to 22 years. A key moment in his life, when the writer is called to defend the homeland in Algeria as it begins to be published, at Le Seuil by Jean Cayrol. Fugue, theft, confinement will follow. Idioty is a call to emancipation, Guyotat observes his young years with a harsh eye and testifies to the birth of a poet. In addition to the Medici, L'Idiotie received the French Language Prize and the Special Jury Prize from the Femina jury.