Jacques Lacarrière


Jacques Lacarrière was a French writer, born in Limoges. He studied moral philosophy, classical literature, and Hindu philosophy and literature. Professionally, he was known as a prominent critic, journalist, and essayist.

Biography

A passionate admirer of ancient Greece and its mythology, Lacarrière wrote about it extensively. His essay L'été grec was an immense popular success. His classical works Maria of Egypt and Dictionnaire amoureux de la Grèce were also successes.
Of interest to ethnographers and ecologists is his Chemin faisant: Mille kilomètres à pied à travers la France. It was based on his walking across France in 1971, when he kept to small roads and byways, stopping at villages. Beginning in August, he traveled from Saverne in the Vosges, reaching Leucate in November, which is located in the Corbières. It was reprinted by Fayard in 1997 with a postscript entitled "Memory of roads," and addition of selected letters from readers. It was released again in 2014, again by Fayard.
Lacarrière's 1973 literary essay, Les Gnostiques, is well respected for its insights into the early Christian religious movement of Gnosticism. The writer had met English author Lawrence Durrell in 1971, who had been studying some Gnostic texts since the early 1940s. Durrell featured Gnosticism as a plot element in the novels of his The Avignon Quintet. He also wrote a "Foreword" to the 1974 English translation of Lacarrière's essay.
He was Correspondent Member of Greek Writers Association “Unifying Process of Authors".
For the whole of his work, in 1991 Lacarrière was awarded le Grand Prix de l'Académie française.
He died in Paris on 17 September 2005, following complications from orthopedic surgery. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered in Greece, in the waters off the island of Spetses.

Works

In French