On the morning of April 12, 2016, Patrick Deville, French writer delivered a wonderful lecture for student and teachers of Institute of French Studies, sharing his traveling and writing experiences with them.
Mr. Deville graduated from Universite de Nantes, France. In the 1980s, he lived in the Middle East, Nigeria and Algeria; etc. In the 1990s, he frequently traveled to Uruguay, Cuba and other Latin American countries. These overseas travel experiences, as his important writing sources, made Mr. Deville realize the cultural change, fusion or extinction caused by globalization. He began writing in 1980 and was known for his “experimental novels” which explore the struggle, exchange and integration among different nations from the perspective of a travel writer. In the lecture, Mr. Deville focused on his writing experience of Peste et cholra (2012), a biographical novel. The book, based on the life of the bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin, won several French literary awards in that year, including Prix Femina, the most important literary award in France.
As a writer, Mr. Deville has a strong sense of social responsibility and particularly pays attention to the development of Latin American literature and culture. He pioneered the “Latin American Youth Literature Award” in 1996, initiated Meet, a literary magazine and helped establish “Association of Foreign Writers and Translators” in Saint-Nazaire. Mr. Deville is a man of great learning, rich experience and unique cultural perspective. Students, deeply attracted by his speech, were eager to ask questions and discussed literary creation and cultural exchanges with him. The lecture ended in warm applause.
Institute of French Studies
April 14, 2016
