France: death of the writer Michel Le Bris, founder of the Etonnants Voyageurs festival
Michel Le Bris, founder of the “Astonishing Voyageurs” literature festival, died on January 30, 2021. AFP - FRANCOIS GUILLOT
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The French writer Michel Le Bris, founder of the festival "Astonishing travelers which has spread across the world, died at the age of 77 on the night of Friday to Saturday," following a long illness ", according to his relatives.
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Born on February 1, 1944 in Plougasnou, near Morlaix in Brittany into a very modest family, Michel Le Bris graduated from HEC, a large business school, in 1967. He was quickly caught up in May 68 and the effervescence that followed.
Director of La Cause du Peuple in 1970, a newspaper of the proletarian left, he found himself in prison for eight months for "
offense of opinion
".
Alongside the writer Jean-Paul Sartre, he was also one of the founders of the daily
Liberation
in 1973.
In turn journalist, producer, publisher, Stevenson specialist, passionate about pirates, Michel Le Bris has written numerous books.
But his great work will remain the “Étonnants Voyageurs” literature festival, subsequently extended to include images.
"
Open-air literature
"
Anchored in Saint-Malo, a former Breton corsair city, since its creation in 1990, the festival, of which he was still the director, has seen hundreds of writers from all over the world parade through its editions that it has helped to make. know in France.
Promoter of the manifesto "
For a world-literature
", Michel Le Bris has always advocated "
a literature of the open air
", "
a literature traveling, adventurous, open to the world, anxious to say it
", "
calling all the little ones to themselves children of Stevenson and Conrad around the world
”.
All in opposition for a long time to a "
certain confined environment
" which then characterized Parisian literary circles in his eyes.
►
To (re) listen: Astonishing Voyageurs, a summit of poetry and elsewhere
Thirty-year-old festival, from Saint-Malo to Port-au-Prince
During these years, under the leadership of its founder, “Étonnants Voyageurs” put this traveling and demanding literature into practice.
In parallel to Saint-Malo, specific editions of the festival have emerged, among others, in Bamako, Sarajevo, Haifa, Brazzaville, Missoula (Montana), a melting pot of American “
nature writers
”, and of course, Port-au-Prince. (Haiti).
The festival, whose name draws its inspiration from a poem by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), was to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2020, an edition canceled due to the health crisis.
"
It is with deep sadness that I learn of the death of Michel Le Bris,
said the president of the Brittany Regional Council Loïg Chesnais-Girard in a press release.
He who said" my Brittany is an island that contains all the others ", understood the power of words, imagination, travel.
"
►
To (re) listen: Astonishing Voyageurs, imagination without borders
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