Dominique Lapierre, author of "The City of Joy", died at 91

With his American "pen brother" Larry Collins, he sold some 50 million copies of their six novels during his lifetime, including

.

Dominique Lapierre, a French writer passionate about India, died at the age of 91 on the Côte d'Azur, his widow announced Sunday in the regional daily

.

"At 91, he died of old age", explained Dominique Conchon-Lapierre, confident in this interview to be "at peace and serene since Dominique no longer suffers".

The writer, who lived in Ramatuelle (Var), near Saint-Tropez, for sixty years, had been a resident for a few years in an Ehpad in the town of Sainte-Maxime.

A philanthropist as much as a best-selling author

He was as much a philanthropist as a successful writer.

Thus, after having written, alone,

(1985), on a slum in Calcutta, he gave a good part of his royalties to the people in misery who had inspired him.

The novel has sold millions of copies and was the subject of a film, directed by Roland Joffé, in 1992.

In 2005, Dominique Lapierre assured that, thanks to his royalties, donations from readers and earnings from conferences delivered around the world, his humanitarian action "had made it possible to cure one million tuberculosis patients in 24 years, treat 9,000 children lepers, build 540 drinking water wells and fit out four hospital ships on the Ganges delta in India".

Many stars to play in

Is Paris Burning?

After

, he had continued his fruitful collaboration with Collins:

(1968, on the bullfighter El Cordobes),

(1972),

(1975, on the independence of India),

(1980, fiction around an atomic bomb) and the thriller

(2004).

For a long time he occupied a house in Ramatuelle, separated from that of Collins (who died in 2005) by a tennis court, acquired with the copyright of

, (1964, 20 million readers, 30 international editions).

René Clément made a film of this story of the Liberation of Paris, on August 25, 1944, with a host of stars, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo or the American Kirk Douglas.

Americans Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal co-wrote the screenplay.

Lapierre also co-wrote, with the Spaniard Javier Moro,

(2001) and, with Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini,

(2005).

Born July 30, 1931 in Châtelaillon, Charente-Maritime, he was also a journalist for

.

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