French writer and editor Philippe Sollers (Joyaux, his real last name), one of the most important literary figures in France in the last half century, died in Paris at the age of 86. This was announced this Saturday by the editorial Gallimard.
“The Gallimard publishing house announces with sadness the death of Philippe Sollers, born Philippe Joyaux, on May 5, 2023”reads the statement.
Sollers, with his provocative aura and enfant terriblewas a central figure in the French publishing world since the 1960s as an experimental novelist, essayist, biographer and magazine founder.
Philippe Sollers and Julia Kristeva in their youth
Born on November 28, 1936 in Talence, near Bordeaux, into a bourgeois family, he was a precocious writer. his first work A curious loneliness he published it at the age of 22. Three years later, in 1961, she won the prize Medici by The park.
He was already initiated into communist militancy -from which he later distanced himself- and began to publish through the emblematic publishing house Gallimard. She rose to fame with a controversial novel, titled Womenin 1983.
Julia Kristeva and Philippe Sollers in their maturity
Eugene Ionesco, Louis Aragon, The Elsa Trio, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Luc Godard o Roland Barthes among others, they were his notorious road companions.
He was married to the psychoanalyst and writer of Bulgarian origin Julia Kristeva and remained active until his last days. His most recent work was titled grail (2022). He is considered one of the best known literary figures in France in the last half century.