Pascal Lainé (10 May 1942 – 30 December 2024) was a French academic, novelist and writer. He was born in

Anet Anet () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of north-central France. It lies 14 km north-northeast of Dreux between the rivers Eure and Vesgre, the latter flowing into the former some 4 km n ...

Eure-et-Loir Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis () is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and .

Goncourt The Goncourt brothers (, , ) were Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896) and Jules de Goncourt (1830–1870), both France, French Naturalism (literature), naturalism writers who, as collaborative sibling authors, were inseparable in life. Background ...

(1974 for '' La Dentellière''), Pascal Lainé has published over 20 novels and has written for television, theatre, and film.

Life and career

While recovering from childhood illnesses, Lainé discovered novelists

Alexandre Dumas, père Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the mos ...

and

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

, aspiring to their kind of voluminous writing, but in school he focused on philosophy and history, becoming an avid student of

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. ( ; ; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interes ...

, and

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

. He was also drawn to

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

(both by conviction and from a desire to rile his parents) and he chose Russian as his second foreign language, permitting him to read

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

and

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian literature, Russian and world literature, and many of his works are consider ...

in the original. Lainé studied philosophy at l'

École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

and began his career as a teacher first at th
Lycée technique de Saint-Quentin
and later at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...

in Paris. He then became a professor in 1974 at the Institut universitaire de technologie in Villetaneuse. He served as an administrator at th
Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques (SACD)
With

Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...

, he discovered the "fireworks" of poetry, and in Mallarmé he discovered the pleasure of deciphering a text and studying its structure. He was also fascinated by

Witold Gombrowicz Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalism, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937, ...

: "I felt with this joker, this aristocratic Rabelais an instant kinship. He taught me that a writer gives up his homeland and is always a foreigner wherever he finds himself." Lainé died in Paris on 30 December 2024, at the age of 82.Mort de l'écrivain Pascal Lainé, Goncourt 1974 pour « La dentellière »

Bibliography

* ''B comme Barrabas'',

Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard (), formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003, it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles. Founded by G ...

, 1967 * ''L'Irrévolution'' (novel), Gallimard, 1971 –

Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis () is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and .

* '' La Dentellière'' (novel), Gallimard, 1974 –

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt ( , "The Goncourt Prize") is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but resul ...

* ''Si on partait'' (novel), Gallimard, 1978 * ''L'Eau du miroir'' (novel),

Mercure de France The () was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was publis ...

, 1979 * ''Tendres cousines'' (novel), Gallimard, 1979 * ''Terres des ombres'' (novel), Gallimard, 1982 * ''Les Petites Egarées'' (novel), 1988 * ''Dialogues du désir'' (novel), 1992 * ''L'Incertaine'' (novel), 1993 * ''Le Commerce des apparences'' (novel), 1997 * ''Anaïs nue'' (novel), 1999 * ''Derniers jours avant fermeture'' (novel), 2001 * ''Capitaine Bringuier'' (play) * ''Monsieur vous oubliez votre cadavre'' * ''Le mystère de la Tour Eiffel'' (novel), 2005 * ''Un clou chasse l'autre ou La vie d'artiste'' (essay), Punctum editions, 2006

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laine, Pascal 1942 births 2024 deaths People from Eure-et-Loir 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists Writers from Centre-Val de Loire ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni Prix Goncourt winners Prix Médicis winners French male novelists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers