One hundred years in a few days and always the same desire to write.In his apartment in the center of Brive-la-Gaillarde in Corrèze, Michel Peyramaure has to write every day in front of his computer.Four to five daily pages for his next book.Since his first novel in 1954, Paradis between four walls, the Corrézien writer has published more than a hundred.

Terroir writer

Michel Peyramaure has long been considered one of the greatest authors of historical novels.He devotes himself to the history of France, in particular through the history of his provinces, which inscribes his work in the regionalist current, or terroir of terroir.Novels therefore, but also many biographies of historical figures such as Joan of Arc, Henri IV, Louis XVI or Napoleon.But also artists like Suzanne Valadon or Sarah Bernhardt.

Mediocre pupil, it was however on the school benches that he discovered a passion for writing: "I was still last in the classroom.This is my glory, my hope and my support.I was last in the class and the teacher comes and asks me what I write.I tell him: I write a poem sir.Show me that !Oh, it's not bad.He returns to his office and tells other children: 'We have in the classroom a genius moron' ", laughs Michel Peyramaure.

Co -founder of the Brive School

After the college, Michel Peyramaure will work in the printing of his father and then becomes a journalist for the mountain, before then devoting himself exclusively to writing.His first historical novel Le Bal des Ribauds appeared in 1955.He then became the instigator of the famous Brive school with his friends from the terroir like him, Denis Tillinac (1947-2020) and Claude Michelet.And it is together that they will have the idea of creating the Brive book fair: "Denis Tillinac said: There are as many writers in Corrèze as calves under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under the mother under.This is Tillinac.So we met, these three ignored characters met and said we are going to set up a little book party.This celebration was a little table (...) where the booksellers had aligned some books.We sold a dozen I think.It seemed to interest people, it was outdoors, on a market.And the market has become a fair finally, "recalls Michel Peyramaure.

It was in 1973, and since then, this fair, and its famous "book train", gastronomic and where alcohol flowed to waves, taking Paris writers to Brive, became one of the biggest eventsliterary in France, in which of course the centenary still participates, even if today French literature disappoints him."What is about me is the poverty of French literature, compared for example to American literature.There is a kind of fall, we do not read almost many French books anymore.So if, there is Houellebecq, but in my opinion it is the only important writer at present ".

A bit provocative, because whatever he says, almost centenary remains attentive to other authors and curious about current literary production.And to the question of the journalist of France 3 Limousin asking him what we can wish him for the next few years, Michel Peyramaure replied by laughing: "To have precisely for the next few years".He published last year before closing in which he returned to fragments of his long life as a man and writer, and evokes old age with emotion.

A great age that did not prevent him this Saturday, January 29, on the eve of his hundredth anniversary from signing his works during a session organized at the Brive media library and in which his numerous admirers were in a hurry, and a teamfrom France 3.

The opportunity for Michel Peyramaure to reassure his fans.If the title of his book sounds like a meeting, he assures him, it will not be his last work.

"Inventory before closing" by Michel Peyramaure-Calmann-Lévy editions-2021 (281p/19.50 euros)