Paris (AFP)
Unpublished memories of the navigator Florence Arthaud, who had given up publishing them during her lifetime, are to be published on February 10, announced on Wednesday the publishing house Arthaud, which her father directed.
"Océane" had been written "on the threshold of the 1990s" according to the back cover, while the sailor had become immensely famous thanks to her record of the solo crossing of the North Atlantic and her victory in the Route du rhum in 1990.
"We are finally publishing this novel story thanks to the agreement of his daughter Marie and his brother Hubert who prefaces it", explained in a press release the Editions Arthaud, formerly directed by Jacques Arthaud.
Florence Arthaud wrote this book at the request of the Filipacchi Médias group, which in exchange became its sponsor.
But it had never been released, the sailor refusing to be edited by a competitor of her father.
She had instead published by Editions Arthaud in 1991, under the same title, a book of photos embellished with short texts.
"When I won the Route du rhum, the editors put the pressure," said the sailor to Elle magazine on the occasion of this publication.
She hinted that she was dissatisfied with her story: "I am not a literary. And as I like a job well done, let's forget!", She explained.
The memoirs to be published describe, among other things, his rebellious youth and his feeling of suffocation in his family environment, but also the affection he felt for his mother.
Florence Arthaud, killed in a helicopter crash in 2015, has written other autobiographical accounts throughout her life.
"La Fiancée de l'Atlantique", published when she was 24, in 1982, was followed by "A wind of freedom" (2009) and "Tonight, the sea is black" (2015).
Yann Queffélec (1985 Goncourt Prize) dedicated a book of memories to him in 2020, "The Sea and Beyond".
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