Dominique Fernandez

Dominique Fernandez
Dominique Fernandez in 2009
Born	25 August 1929 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure
Occupation	Writer

Dominique Fernandez (born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine on August 25, 1929) is a French writer of novels, essays and travel books. Much of his writing explores homosexual experience and creativity.^[1] In 1982 he won the Prix Goncourt for his novel about Pier Paolo Pasolini; and in 2007 he was elected a member of the Académie française.^[2]

Biography

Dominique Fernandez was born in France on 25 August 1929, at Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. He is the son of the Mexican Ramón Fernández, a literary critic whose reputation was tarnished when he served during World War II on the executive committee of the Parti Populaire Français, collaborating with France's Nazi occupiers. He died in 1944. Dominique Fernandez's inaugural speech in the Academy in 2007 was a defence of his father. Fernandez was educated at the Ecole Normale Superieure. He gained a doctorate in Italian literature.

In 1957 and 1958 he taught in Naples at the French Institute, but was recalled after a controversial lecture on Roger Vailland, who had won the Prix Goncourt for his novel La Loi (1957). Fernandez's literary career began in 1958 with a study of the modern Italian novel. He then worked as a literary critic for the weekly, L'Express and as a reader for the publishers Grasset. He holds a regular column in the Swiss magazine of art and culture : Artpassions.

In 1961 he married Diane Jacquin de Margerie; they had two children, Ramon and Laetitia, before their divorce in 1971. From 1966 to 1989 he taught Italian literature at the University of Haute-Bretagne at Rennes. He was then a critic for Le Nouvel Observateur and for an opera periodical.

When he became a member of the Academie francaise in 2007, he chose for the hilt of his ceremonial sword an image of Ganymede.

Further reading

• L. Cairns, Privileged Pariahdom: homosexuality in the novels of Dominique Fernandez (1996)

References

1. Gianoulis, Tina (2007), "Dominique Fernandez", glbtq.com, retrieved 2007-12-25
2. Dominique Fernandez academie-francaise.fr