Death of Pierre Bordage, “Balzac of science fiction”, at 70

He was the “Balzac of the SF” . The writer Pierre Bordage, best-selling author and undisputed leader of new French science fiction, died on Friday at the age of 70, the publishers Au Diable Vauvert and L’Atalante, who published most of his fifty novels, announced on Monday, December 29. His death is “occurred following a cardiac arrest on December 26 in his 71^e year “the publishers specified in a press release.

“He is a great French writer who is disappearing, an inventor of stories and worlds who pushed the boundaries of inspiration and genres”they added. Pierre Bourdage spoke of himself in these terms: “I try to carve out a small place for myself, a modest plowman of words, in the eternal and fruitful furrow traced by the great history-makers. »

The writer, born in 1955 in La Réorthe (Vendée), published more than 90 books and contributed to popularizing French SF from the 1990s when the sector was largely dominated by Anglo-Saxon authors. He notably acquired a certain success with his trilogy The Silent Warriors (L’Atalante), whose first volume sold 50,000 copies, a significant figure for a French-speaking SF work.

Pierre Bordage has also experimented with other styles, including historical or scientific fantasy and detective fiction. He was inspired by a video game with Atlantispublished in 1998 and then translated in the United States.