Frédéric DUGIER

Frédéric DUGIER

Formerly the head of an audiovisual production company where he was the sound engineer, and a songwriter and member of Sacem (Same Society), Frédéric Dugier has participated in the creation of numerous musical shows. Author and composer of more than 100 songs for various artists, musical tales, and producer of musical comedies, his passion for words naturally led him to writing. After De sable et d'eau (Of Sand and Water), Le violon du Pacifique is his second novel, which won a prize at the 2024 Arts et Lettres de France international literary competition. Frédéric Dugier, 63, lives and resides in Aix-en-Provence.

Nicolas Mazin, a famous violin maker from Mirecourt, left for Valparaíso in September 1973 to deliver to his friend Diego the violin he had promised him years earlier. Leaving his family, he had no idea that he would remain a prisoner, along with Diego, Catalina, and Milovans, in Chilean jails for nearly fifteen years. Captured during a raid at the start of the "Golpe," the coup d'état that saw the felonious General Augusto Pinochet rule the country for two decades, they would become among the famous missing persons of this bloody dictatorship, which caused the deaths of thousands of people. Marcel, a renowned bow maker, friend and close collaborator of Nic in their famous violin making, and Joaquín, a Chilean music teacher, would persist for years in searching for their missing friends, finally finding them miraculously in a hospice in Montevideo, after this interminable period of captivity. These fifteen years of purgatory in detention centers, including the infamous Esmeralda ship anchored in the port of Valparaíso, where torture and humiliation were the condiments of their indigestible food, rendered them almost mute. Nic and Diego will try to rebuild themselves with difficulty, driven by the love of their loved ones as much as by their respective passions: music for one, his craft for the other. This book is the story of their resilience, of the corrosive questioning that wore down their loved ones during this long ordeal, and of the apprehension of a second life where the relationship with time is different. Publication date: November 4, 2024 Order Press release