Bernard Pivot

Bernard Pivot (Known as "Bernard Pivot")

["journalist","television_host","author","literary_critic"]

Born May 05, 1935

Lyon, France

Passed Away May 06, 2024 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

Lifespan 89 years old

25 views

Notice / Correction

"Reading is like friendship: it enriches life, comforts solitude, and expands the soul."

Archival Overview

Beloved French cultural journalist, television presenter, and president of the Académie Goncourt whose iconic literary talk show Apostrophes made reading and intellectual debate a prime-time national passion for decades.

Biographical Record

Bernard Pivot was born in Lyon and graduated from the Centre de formation des journalistes (CFJ) in Paris. He worked for Le Figaro Littéraire before conceiving a revolutionary television concept: a live, Friday evening prime-time talk show dedicated entirely to books, authors, and ideas.

From 1975 to 1990, Pivot hosted Apostrophes on Antenne 2, attracting millions of viewers weekly. His warm, probing interviews hosted titans of global literature including Vladimir Nabokov, Marguerite Duras, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Charles Bukowski, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, with an appearance on his show routinely transforming books into bestsellers overnight. Pivot later hosted Bouillon de culture and popularized the famous Proust Questionnaire adapted worldwide by James Lipton. From 2014 to 2019, Pivot served as the first non-writer president of the prestigious Académie Goncourt.

Key Life Milestones

January 10, 1975

First Broadcast of Apostrophes

Launched Apostrophes on French television, establishing a legendary cultural program that ran for 724 weekly episodes.

January 7, 2014

Elected President of Académie Goncourt

Elected president of France's most prestigious literary prize committee, succeeding Edmonde Charles-Roux.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial

Cimetière de Quincié-en-Beaujolais
Quincié-en-Beaujolais, France

                         GPS: 46.1205, 4.6146                    

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