Philippe Pichon
Honorary Commander of the National Police, Philippe Pichon, who came to public attention with his book *Journal d'un flic* (Flammarion, 2007), pursues a dual career as a reader (*Saint-John Perse*, La Maison de Poésie/Plein Chant, 2004) and as a poet (*[Entre] presque [et] rien*, Dutan, 2021; *Aux basaltes de l'âge*, Prolégomènes, 2021; *L'Éphémère en héritage*, Prolégomènes, 2021; *La joue pas rasée de la solitude*, Prolégomènes, 2022). He is also the author of numerous essays, including *Fichier STIC : une mémoire policière sale* (Jean-Claude Gawsewitch, 2010), which sparked considerable controversy in the national press. Following critical acclaim, his essay on the "Maudit de Meudon," *Le Cas Céline : coupable, mais de quoi ?*, was published. (Dualpha) was published in a revised and expanded third edition in 2019. Winner of the Biography Prize from the Académie des Pays de France. The poet-policeman is also the author of short stories (L'Enfance violée, Flammarion, 2008; Le Pain d'ortie, Dutan, reissued 2020) and novels (À contre-silence, Noir & Blanc, 2003; Un Regard vers le ciel, Éditions de Paris/Max Chaleil, reissued 2021). The author has received numerous literary awards. He was a member of the 2020 Molière Awards jury and a member of the 2021 Rimbaud du Cinéma jury. His play, Seine de crime, was given a public reading by the Compagnie Fracasse in Montreuil (93) on December 4, 2021, and is awaiting its performance at the Avignon Off Festival. He is the author of about thirty books, including, published by Douro, Le ciel ne fait pas l'ombre d'un regard in 2022.
A poem as much as poems: in this book, Philippe Pichon revives the suppleness of his long lines, his verse, sustained by a musicality (internal rhymes, recurring patterns) that powerfully expresses this desire to embark on an epic journey, a kind of Anabasis confident in its lyrical path alone, a journey that ultimately crumbles into fragments of a few lines, reduced to the sheer materiality of its writing, but so intensely lived that it never despairs of beginning the journey again. Publication date: March 1, 2023. Order now
"Because it was him; because it was me" would have been the perfect quote to introduce *A Friend from the High Seas*. But instead of Montaigne and La Boétie, we find ourselves before two Montaignes, two writers of equal stature who share a deep friendship, two writing styles that hold life by the hands that write it: Philippe Pichon and Pierre Lepère. Pichon writes (about) Lepère. Face to face? Side by side? Back to back? That's not the real question! Here it is: "Who writes Philippe Pichon who writes Pierre Lepère who writes? Life? Truth? Childhood? Love? Death? Many question marks, aren't there! That's the whole answer! Enjoy your reading. Publication date: March 1, 2023. Order now
The fragmentary form questions the fragmentation of memory and thought. It leads back to the partial and the derisory, and thus, paradoxically, to a form of universality. At once echoes and reverberations, characters and anecdotes, confabulations and short writings, maxims and idle chatter, aphorisms and gossip, maxims and idle talk, Philippe Pichon offers us here a collection of fragments and snapshots, in the form of poetic verses. Unable to saw through the bars of the past, the poet often escapes through the channels of dreams. And perhaps that is the world: the sky and the sea undivided on the horizon, eternity unfurled with open arms. Perhaps that is the world: a journey through life. Publication date: May 2, 2022 Order
