Writer: Dominique Lapierre, author of “The City of Joy”, died at 91

BOOKS Dominique Lapierre has written six novels with the American Larry Collins, including “Is Paris Burning?” » published in 1964

Dominique Lapierre, in India in 2008. — ARINDAM MUKHERJEE

With his “pen brother” American Larry Collins, he will have sold during his lifetime some 50 million copies of their six novels, including Paris brûle-t-il . Dominique Lapierre, passionate French writer by India, died to 91 years old on the Côte d’Azur, announced his widow on Sunday in the regional daily Var-Matin.

“”” 91, he died of old age,” 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 about sixty years, had been a resident for a few years in an Ehpad in the town of Sainte-Maxime.

A philanthropist as much as an author at success

He was as much a philanthropist as a writer at success. This is how, after having written, alone, La cité; of Joy (1985), set in a Calcutta slum, he donated much of his royalties to the needy people who had inspired him. The novel sold in total at millions of copies and was the subject of a film, made by Roland Joffé, in 1992.

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

Many stars to play in Burning Paris -he?

After Is Paris Burning?, he continued his fruitful collaboration with Collins: Where? you will wear my mourning (1968, on the bullfighter El Cordobes), Ô Jerusalem (1972), Tonight Freedom (1975, about India’s independence), The Fifth Horseman (1980, fiction about an atomic bomb) and the thriller Is New York Burning? (2004).

He has long occupied a home in Ramatuelle, separated from that of Collins (who died in 2005) by a tennis court, acquired with copyright from Paris brûle-t-il  ;?, (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. The Americans Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal had co-signed; the screenplay.

Lapierre also co-wrote, with the Spaniard Javier Moro, It was five past midnight at five minutes past midnight. Bhopal (2001) and, with Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini, Once upon a time in the USSR (2005). Born on July 30, 1931 at; Ch&itacirctelaillon, in Charente-Maritime, he was also a journalist at; Paris Match.