Pierre Bergounioux

Pierre Bergounioux was born in 1949 in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Corrèze (France). As of 1974, after receiving his «normal sup» diploma, this pedagogue, who read Faulkner and Homer, Kafka and Proust, taught French in schools around Paris. He published his first novel in 1984, Catherine, which he wrote in twelve days.

Entomologist and a passionate fisher, he is also a sculptor and recycler of metal objects that have been abandoned by hurried users. It is this soldering and recuperating approach that Bergounioux follows in his literary process.

All of his work is about the countryside world, its harshness and its poetry, its hold on the destiny of the men who live there, their difficulty mastering this hostile countryside, tearing from it a substance or escaping from it. The weight of the ancestors, of traditions, which define the role of everyone inside the family and the whole community.

A witness of the mourning of this rural world and via the long memory of humble people, he observes without nostalgia that which links generations to that which is universal.

Selected bibliography

• Back in the sixties, Lagrasse : Verdier, 2003
• Jusqu’à Faulkner, Paris : Gallimard, 2002
• Le Premier mot, Paris : Gallimard, 2001
• Un peu de bleu dans le paysage, Lagrasse : Verdier, 2001
• B-17 G, Paris : Flohic, 2001
• L’Eau, le Feu, Paris : éditions de l’Imprimeur, 2001
• Les Forges de Syam, Paris : éditions de l’Imprimeur, 2001
• La Ligne, Verdier, Lagrasse : Verdier, 1997
• La Mort de Brune, Paris : Gallimard, 1996
• Miette, Paris : Gallimard, 1996
• La Toussaint, Paris : Gallimard, 1994
• Le Grand Sylvain, Lagrasse : Verdier, 1993
• Le Matin des origines, Lagrasse : Verdier, 1992
• L’Orphelin, Paris : Gallimard, 1992
• La Mue, Paris : Gallimard, 1991
• C’était nous, Paris : Gallimard, 1989
• L’Arbre sur la rivière, Paris : Gallimard, 1988
• La Maison rose, Paris : Gallimard, 1987
• La Bête faramineuse, Paris : Gallimard, 1986
• Ce pas et le suivant, Paris : Gallimard, 1985
• Catherine, Paris : Gallimard, 1984