The author of the “very basic”, so singular, leaves around sixty books whose titles whisper between readers. He died at the age of 71, Friday, in his region of Saône-et-Loire.
by Béatrice Gurrey
He wanted to write a “Treatise on the Smile”. That of his dear missing, capable of keeping them out of the black waters of forgetting, that of the child with a cradle which gave him a special enchantment. The prerogative of man, he seemed to him “the deepest possible object of meditation”, as he had entrusted, in October, to Le Figaro. Christian Bobin, who died at 71 years from dazzling cancer, Friday, November 23, in Saône-et-Loire, will not have had time. This unique writer, however, leaves around sixty pounds, whose titles whisper lovingly between readers. Hundreds of thousands of faithful, of all ages and all conditions, magnetized by his prose which makes their lives more poetic.
We have too often presented it as a hermit living at the bottom of the woods. There is real in this image, because it was necessary, once descended from the TGV to the Creusot, in this Saône-et-Loire backed by the Morvan, take to the north to a path named old field and roll towards the forest of the small Prodhun, where his house with blue shutters was. No neighbor, otherwise birds, deer and trees.
He lived there with his partner, the writer and poet Lydie Dattas – even if he had returned to Creusot recently – and his door has always remained open to visitors. We were welcomed by a good fire, a meal if the conversation continued, we could see the monacale piece of the writer and dive into “the jam cabinet”, where forgotten authors rubbed shoulders, Jean Grosjean, André Dhôtel, Jean Follain. We were sure to hear his laughter of thunder at least once, to see crack this face of clay surmounted by a large forehead, where the feelings were printed.
Christian Bobin never moved much from Creusot. He did not conceive of particular pride, nor shame, this is how a motionless journey. He was born there on April 24, 1951, in a family like so many others under the reign of the Schneider, the kings of coal and steel. In the all -powerful company, his father is an industrial designer, his layer mother. No trace of this universe in his work, which is even at antipodes: the only factory, nature, makes wonder and man of eternal feelings. He has “the best place”, that of the last, after a brother and a sister, but a silent childhood, a little lonely, “the front against the glass”.
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