Dominique FERNANDEZ, French author reading committee Edns. Bernard Grasset since 1959.
Background
Dominique Fernandez was born in France on 25 August 1929, at Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. He is the son of the Mexican Ramón Fernández, a literary critic whose reputation was tarnished when he served during World World War II on the executive committee of the Parti Populaire Français, collaborating with France"s Nazi occupiers.
Education
Lycee Buffon, Paris and Ecole Normale Superieure.
Career
Much of his writing explores homosexual experience and creativity. He died in 1944. Dominique Fernandez"s inaugural speech in the Academy in 2007 was a defence of his father. Fernandez was educated at the Ecole Normale Superieure.
He gained a doctorate in Italian literature.
Fernandez"s literary career began in 1958 with a study of the modern Italian novel. He then worked as a literary critic for the weekly, L"Express and as a reader for the publishers Grasset.
He holds a regular column in the Swiss magazine of art and culture: Artpassions. From 1966 to 1989 he taught Italian literature at the University of Haute-Bretagne at Rennes.
He was then a critic for Le Nouvel Observateur and for an opera periodical.
Achievements
Membership
Académie française]
When he became a member of the Academie francaise in 2007, he chose for the hilt of his ceremonial sword an image of Ganymede.