Paris (AFP)

In love with Brazil, journalist and writer Gilles Lapouge died on Friday at the age of 97 in Paris, his publishing house Albin Michel announced.

"He died this morning at the American hospital in Paris," of pneumonia, she said.

A little against his will, this poet-geographer, more a stroller than an adventurer, has long been a key figure at the "Astonishing Voyageurs" festival in Saint-Malo.

Born in 1923 in Digne (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), Gilles Lapouge spent his childhood and youth in Algeria. In 1948, he was a journalist for Alger-Républicain.

In 1951, he was an economic journalist for the major Brazilian daily "O Estado de Sao Paulo" before returning to Paris three years later. He continued to collaborate with the newspaper for several decades.

"Journalism, which I have practiced for so many years, saved me from bad literature and pride," he assured.

He published his first book, "Un soldier en rout", at age 40. Some 25 followed. Essays on piracy, utopias, geography, Michelangelo, eroticism or the meaning of travel, until his last, an "Atlas of lost paradises", in 2017.

Novels too, such as "Les follies Koenigsmark", public success in 1989, "The Copenhagen fire" (1995) or "The border mission" (2002).

He had narrowly failed at Goncourt 1977 with "Equinoxiales", a travelogue in the Brazilian northeast, as well as, to a lesser extent, in 1986, with the historical novel, "The battle of Wagram".

But his work was crowned with many other awards: Prix des Deux Magots, Joseph-Kessel, Femina for the essay, Goncourt for the historical narrative, etc. For "The donkey and the bee" (2014), a comparative zoology essay, he received the 30 Millions d'Amis and France Télévisions awards.

At the same time, he was the producer of the program "Agora" of France Culture, he collaborated with Le Monde, Le Figaro and La Quinzaine littéraire, participated in 1973 in the launch of the television program "Apostrophes", which was called then "Open the quotes".

Finally, we obviously owed him several fictions and essays on Brazil - including in 2011 a "Dictionary of love" of the country which had "always astonished and surprised, sometimes annoyed, without ever disappointing", despite the violence that he did not deny.

The French Embassy in Brazil also greeted Friday, in a tweet, the memory of "the eternal lover of Brazil".

© 2020 AFP