Upon the announcement of the death of the writer and host Bernard Pivot, who died at the age of 89, Stéphane Bern, the presenter of Secrets d’histoire on France 2 confided his “sadness for the one who made us love books, who had transmitted his passion for words to the whole of France, for decades. A man always cheerful, funny, mocking and infinitely good.”
The writer, presenter and journalist Bernard Pivot left us yesterday Monday May 6, 2024 at the age of 89 in Neuilly-sur-Seine following an illness, probably cancer, the disease of the century.
“I left Goncourt in December 2019. My health problems started immediately afterwards, in January 2020,” he explained in an interview with JDD in April 2023. “I remained silent because the evil struck me on the head, the seat of the brain and speech. Better to keep silent while waiting for memory to recharge and thoughts to flower again,” he confided, without ever having publicly revealed the illness that was plaguing him.
Pascal Bruckner, philosopher and academician Goncourt, spoke to BFMTV after the death by Bernard Pivot. “He was feeling bad, but we didn’t know exactly how fatal this illness was going to be. And so Pivot came to see us a year and a half ago for lunch, and he didn’t have much of an appetite, which was a bad sign. He was skinny,” he told the 24-hour news channel. “But the Academy was a bit like his property, his thing. It was his family. And he wanted to make sure that people got along well, that the literary choices were good, that understanding reigned between us. He had his place and we hoped to invite him back this year before the summer. I never thought he would leave so quickly.”
“Apostrophe”, the cult show
This lover of letters, “smuggler, popular and demanding, dear to the hearts of the French” according to Emmanuel Macron’s posthumous tribute, was the creator of the famous program “Apostrophe” on Antenna 2 where he notably received great writers such as Marguerite Duras, Georges Simenon, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Bukowski, Patrick Modiano and Jean d’Ormesson. He also presented the show “Bouillon de culture” and organized, from 1985, the Dicos d’or, a spelling championship which has become international.
Elected member of the Académie Goncourt in 2004, Bernard Pivot was the first non-writer to join the prestigious institution. His passage remains marked by transparency and above all the rules of ethics relating to the awarding of the Goncourt Prize, in particular the prohibition of any member of the jury from having an activity within a publishing house.
A free man
A man of principles, and while he was preparing to be decorated with the Legion of Honor, Bernard Pivot preferred to refuse the highest French distinction in 1992. “It is a bonus for notoriety and I did not want to find myself with my little red ribbon in front of people I admire and who I know deserve it much more than me. And, second reason, I have always thought that a working journalist should not accept it. It turns out that the left offered it to me, then the right, then the left, and it seems to me that if I accepted I would be a little less free,” he confided.
Tributes
The disappearance of Bernard Pivot leaves an immense void in the world of literature. In his last interviews, he confided in his regrets. He notably mentioned the time he had not been able to spend with his children because of a very busy career. “I worked a lot, too much perhaps,” he declared. “I sacrificed a lot of things, including my family life.”
The writer Frédéric Beigbeder reacted on the set of CNews on the death of Bernard Pivot. “It’s a spirit, it’s freedom, it’s curiosity, it’s insolence. What he also had as qualities was humor and impertinence.”
And to continue: “I had the chance to go on a Bernard Pivot show once, it was “Bouillon de culture”, it was live and it was dangerous. It was a very risky show because he threw everything he thought in your face. He read attentively, he took notes, he cross-read the pages, he underlined the sentences. He did a titanic job and it must be said, because he was not a TV host surrounded by people who worked in his place. »
For his part, the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, paid tribute to the man who “embodied the meeting of an entire era, a literary, political, societal world, always at the service of words. Between the lights of books and those of television, between a demanding and popular show, between the arts and letters: all his life, he played with this balance by refusing to choose. This is what gave him such a unique place in the hearts of the French,” the Prime Minister wrote on X.
Ditto for Jack Lang, the former Minister of Culture who considers that this son of Lyon grocers “will have made millions of French people read. His television shows were cult. He was a devourer of books. Bernard Pivot had a passion for reading and he knew how to pass it on to others.” Adding that “his insatiable gluttony for words whetted in us the irresistible appetite to discover the authors he loved. Bernard Pivot will have brought the incomparable art of the interview to perfection, knowing with kindness, curiosity, liveliness and humor, to bring out the best of himself from the interviewee. He became a legend.”
Rest in peace.
