The presenter and writer Bernard Pivot, who made millions of French speakers read thanks to his show “Apostrophes”, died Monday in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the age of 89, announced his daughter Cécile Pivot.
A book in one hand, his pair of glasses in the other, Bernard Pivot was as scrupulous a reader as he was brilliant as an interviewer. Over the years, he had established himself as a popular figure well beyond the small Parisian literary circle.
In 2016, he had this witticism on Twitter: “The habit of radio stations calling me when a writer dies is so great that, the day I die, they will call me.”
“Apostrophes”, an unmissable event
Broadcast from 1975 on Friday evenings, his literary program “Apostrophes” was watched by several million viewers. Great connoisseurs of literature or modest book lovers, they appreciated the witticisms, the strikingly concise thoughts, the lyrical tirades or the shouting matches that Bernard Pivot knew how to provoke in the invited authors.
Bernard Pivot during the show “Apostrophes” on October 23, 1987, on Antenne 2. [AFP – GEORGES BENDRIHEM]
The host had no equal when it came to relaxing the atmosphere on his set. And, in live conditions, to raise the debate. Giants of the 20th century sat opposite him to discuss the title they had just published, such as the writer Marguerite Duras, the boxer Mohamed Ali or the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
The newspaper Le Monde describes the show as “an unmissable event for authors and the publishing world”. For the magazine Télérama, it “durably changed literary life”, “a sociological phenomenon and a unique cultural object of its kind”.
When “Apostrophe ended in 1990, the loss seemed irreparable to this community. Affable, even-tempered, Bernard Pivot was unanimously appreciated there.
However, the archives of the show also reveal an era that has now passed. So when the Gabriel Matzneff affair arose in January 2020, an author who benefited from great indulgence while he had sexual relations with minors, we rewatched a show from March 1990 on which the writer was a guest. With 30 years of hindsight, the sequence is shocking. “Today, morality comes before literature. Morally, it’s progress,” defends Bernard Pivot.
>> The interview in Forum with François Jost, professor of information and communication sciences: The presenter and writer Bernard Pivot died at 89: tribute from François Jost / Forum / 4 min. / yesterday at 6:00 p.m.
President of the Goncourt Academy
After the end of “Apostrophes”, Bernard Pivot created “Bouillon de culture”, still on public service, with a broader horizon than books.
He who easily admitted his limitations as a writer then exercised his influence at the Académie Goncourt. Joined in 2004, president in 2014, he withdrew at the end of 2019.
The other academicians are grateful to him for his independence without any compromise in the face of the major French publishers. Under his presidency, the editions of the Goncourt Prize in 2006 (“Les Bienveillantes” by Jonathan Littell) and 2010 (“La Carte et le Territoire” by Michel Houellebecq) remain in the annals.
>> Listen to an interview with Bernard Pivot about his book “Yes, but what is the question?” : Asking questions, a profession or a vice? / Men and women instructions / 56 min. / November 3, 2012
Bernard Pivot has published numerous texts and written three novels: “L’Amour en vogue” (1959), “Oui, mais que est la question?” (2012) and “…but life goes on” (2021). As an enlightened wine lover, we also owe him a “Wine Lovers Dictionary” (2006).
From 1985, he also organized the Dicos d’or, a spelling championship that quickly became international.