Death of Maryse Wolinski, the fighter widow of cartoonist Georges Wolinski

Journalist and novelist Maryse Wolinski (here in March 2015), widow of cartoonist Georges Wolinski, died on December 9, 2021, at the age of 78.

© Hans Lucas / Reuters

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

3 min

This Thursday, December 9, Maryse Wolinski, widow of designer Georges Wolinski, killed in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, died at the age of 78.

Until the end, she continued the fight for freedom for which her husband and the team of the satirical newspaper paid the ultimate sacrifice.

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Last September, the novelist and journalist donated 41 drawings to the Beaux-Arts in Paris so that her husband's work will enter the history of art. On this occasion, already marked by her cancer, Maryse Wolinski appeared a little frail. But she had kept her spontaneity and above all her good will in the service of others. In this high place of art, she spoke to us with great emotion and commitment about the work of her designer husband, his role in society and his wit expressed by " 

provocation

 " and " 

humor

 ”. 

Above all, she had shown her determination to fulfill her husband's dream: the inauguration of a House of press cartoon and satirical drawing.

A well advanced project and since 2020 also supported by President Macron, but of which Maryse Wolinski will therefore not attend the inauguration.

[Video] When Maryse Wolinski talks about her husband Georges

Georges Wolinski in 1991 © Mathilde de l'Ecotais / AFP

Journalism, marriage and literature

Born May 3, 1943 in Algiers, originally from Lot-et-Garonne, Maryse Bachère began her professional career as a journalist for the daily

Sud-Ouest

in Bordeaux and the “Society” pages of the

Journal du dimanche.

It was then that she met Georges Wolinski and the humorous and critical world of caricature. And these two universes made a strong impression on him.

She then married this father of two daughters and three years later gave birth to their common daughter Elsa.

Despite the family charge, Maryse Wolinski remained a journalist working in Paris for

Elle

or

Le Monde-Dimanche,

before starting a second career as a novelist.

In 1988, she published her first novel with Flammarion,

Au diable Vauvert

, followed by

The Master of Love

in 1992 and

The Woman who loved men

in 1998.  

Vegetarian and convinced feminist

A convinced feminist, Maryse Wolinski would have done everything to save and keep the memory of her husband, designer of scenes often as political as they are raw and defying all morality.

Since the tragic day of January 7, 2015, she has written three books to maintain the artistic legacy of this chronicler of the human soul.

In 2016,

Darling, I Go to Charlie

started this trilogy, among other things also with questions on " 

the dysfunctions

 " of the police and the counterterrorism.

A criticism that she had renewed in 2020, during the trial of the attack against Charlie Hebdo where she was a civil party.

In 2018, with her book

Le Goût de la belle vie,

she had shown that, even bruised, she continued to fight for the beautiful and the just, before paying in 2020 a last tribute to the man to whom she was married. for 43 years:

At the risk of life

.

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