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Pierre Michon

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Pierre Michon
Born (1945-03-28) 28 March 1945 (age 79)
Châtelus-le-Marcheix, Creuse, France
NationalityFrench
GenreFiction
Notable awards
SpouseYaël Pachet

Pierre Michon (born 28 March 1945 in Châtelus-le-Marcheix, Creuse) is a French writer. His first novel, Small Lives (1984), is widely regarded as a genuine masterpiece in contemporary French literature.[1] He has won several prizes for Small Lives and for The Origin of the World (1996) as well as for his body of work. His novels and stories have been translated into German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Polish, Serbian, Czech, Norwegian, Estonian, Japanese and English. He won the 2017 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

With an oeuvre consisting of a stunning confessional novel—Vies minuscules (1984)—and a series of Plutarch-like "lives" devoted to famous artists and poets, Michon commands respect as a sensitive author and gifted stylist who seeks to comprehend how we can make sense out of the irrepressible impulses and unavoidable failures that fill our lives. Whether he is charting the misfortunes of the lowly, portraying his own difficult rise from rural poverty and a broken family to the completion of his first book, or plunging into the destinies of Watteau, Goya, Rimbaud, or Van Gogh, Michon poignantly captures the essence of the compelling courses our lives take.[2]

Works

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  • 1984: Small Lives (Vies minuscules).
    • Translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays for Archipelago Books, 2008.
  • 1988: Life of Joseph Roulin (Vie de Joseph Roulin).
    • Translated by Wyatt Mason for Mercury House and included in Masters and Servants, 1997.
  • 1997: L'empereur d'Occident.
  • 1990: Masters and Servants (Maîtres et serviteurs).
    • Translated by Wyatt Mason for Mercury House, 1997.
  • 1991: Rimbaud the Son (Rimbaud le fils).[3]
    • Translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays for Yale University Press, 2013.
  • 1996: The Origin of the World (La Grande Beune).
    • Translated by Wyatt Mason for Mercury House, 2002.
  • 1996: The King of the Wood (Le roi du bois).
    • Translated by Wyatt Mason for Mercury House and included in Masters and Servants, 1997.
  • 1997: Trois auteurs.
  • 1997: Winter Mythologies (Mythologies d'hiver).
    • Translated by Ann Jefferson for Yale University Press, 2017.
  • 2002: Abbots (Abbés).
    • Translated by Ann Jefferson for Yale University Press, 2017.
  • 2002: Corps du roi.
  • 2007: Le roi vient quand il veut : propos sur la littérature.
  • 2009: The Eleven (Les Onze).
    • Translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays for Archipelago Books, 2013.

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ Le Monde concluded its review with "this beautiful, shuddering text, written with exact mastery, tends towards appeasement. The writing, touched by grace, gives substance to fading souls: that's justification, if any were needed. It consoles us for the indecency of life, which imposes the painful feeling of being too much, of having done nothing for it, and of having to apologise for it."
  2. ^ Taylor, John (31 December 2011). "Of Dignity and Destiny (Pierre Michon)". Paths to Contemporary French Literature. Vol. 1. Transaction Publishers. pp. 82–86. ISBN 978-1-4128-3054-6. (quote from p. 82)
  3. ^ Magedera, Ian H. (September 2014). "Pierre Michon's biographical fiction (about Rimbaud)". Outsider Biographies: Savage, de Sade, Wainewright, Ned Kelly, Billy the Kid, Rimbaud and Genet: Base Crime and High Art in Biography and Bio-Fiction, 1744-2000. Rodopi. pp. 239–250. ISBN 978-94-012-1143-7.
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