The French journalist and writer Olivier Todd, author of a notable biography of Albert Camus, died at the age of 95, his son told AFP on Saturday, confirming information from the Monde. He died during the night from Friday to Saturday, said his son, the historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd.
Born in 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Île-de-France), Olivier Todd collaborated in the 1960s and 1970s with the BBC and The New Observerfor which he covered the war in Vietnam, before joining the newspaper l’Express in 1977 of which he became deputy editor-in-chief.
Biographer of Brel, Camus and Malraux
He is also the author of several biographies, notably of the singer Jacques Brel (1984), of Albert Camus, a work which won the France Télévision literary prize in 1996 and the Mémorial Prize, Ajaccio literary grand prize, but also of André Malraux (2001).
“Olivier Todd is dead. He was a model for me and like an uncle but it is journalism that is in mourning,” reacted journalist Bernard Guetta, who was close to the family, on X Saturday.
“Committed, subjective, he never claimed objectivity but he embodied like no one else intellectual honesty, courage and talent, all three at the same time,” continued the winner of the Albert Londres Prize.
