Awarded, among other things, the Grand Prix for Poetry of the Académie Française and the Goncourt of Poetry, he was also an editor at Gallimard and editor-in-chief of the Nouvelle revue française. Jacques Réda was 95 years old.
Jacques Réda leaves behind an abundant body of work which has earned him prestigious distinctions. Photo Jean Ber/Collection Christophel
By Télérama, with AFP
Published on September 30, 2024 at 2:46 p.m.
Jacques Réda, lyric poet and former editor-in-chief of the Nouvelle revue française (NRF), died Monday at the age of 95, announced Gallimard where he was editor.
Born on January 24, 1929 in Lorraine (eastern France), Jacques Réda leaves behind an abundant body of work which has earned him prestigious distinctions, such as the Grand Prix for poetry from the Académie française (1997) and the Goncourt for poetry for The Race (1999).
“By his works as well as by the attention he never ceased to pay to other writers of his time, (he) testified to his attachment to a creative literature which knows how to keep all its promises of expression and human truth, without never let go of the connection with the reader, nature and the world as it goes”indicate Gallimard editions in a press release.
It was in 1968 that his work, fueled by his passion for jazz, science and urban toponymy, began to be published by Gallimard, which he then joined in 1975 as editor before joining the reading committee. from 1983.
Flâneur writer
Between September 1987 and December 1995, he was editor-in-chief of the NRF, a reference journal founded by Gide in 1909, where he prided himself on having brought in more provincial authors and poets.
The poems of this strolling writer sing in particular of the beauties of Paris, the suburbs and the side roads, notably in The ruins of Paris (1977), one of his most accomplished collections of poetic prose.
At 94, he still sang about the lime trees of Port-Royal or the Parisian blackbirds in Lessons from the tree and the wind (2023).
He settled in the capital in 1953, carrying out all kinds of administrative jobs before taking up writing.
A learned columnist, he had collaborated for more than fifty years on Jazz magazine and confessed in 2017 “a musical addiction” and one “passion for beating”.
