Oxford Bookstore presents a literary soirée with French New Philosopher Pascal Bruckner

Kolkata, March 31st: Oxford Bookstore in association with The Embassy of France / The French Institute in India and the Alliance Française du Bengale hosted a literary soirée on “Philosophy of Longevity” with renowned French Author Mr. Pascal Bruckner. The author was in conversation with a distinguished Scholar of French, Author, and Academic Dr. Chinmoy Guha.

The literary evening commenced with the opening remarks of Mr. Nicolas Facino, Director of Alliance Française du Bengale, who spoke about the collaboration between the iconic Oxford Bookstore and The Embassy of France / The French Institute in India and the Alliance Française du Bengale which has been nurtured over the years through various cultural and literary partnerships.

“We are very lucky at Alliance Française to welcome such a personality like Pascal Bruckner. I would like to thank Oxford Bookstore, a strong partner of Alliance Française and promoter of French culture for years”, said Mr. Nicolas Facino.

Born in Paris in 1948, the 73-year-old French author, Pascal Bruckner began writing in the vein of the nouveaux philosophes or New Philosophers. He came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of his work has been devoted to critiques of French society and culture.

He spent his childhood in Austria and Switzerland where he studied philosophy and literature with Vladimir Jankélévitch and Roland Barthes. A writer and philosopher, Bruckner has written 30 books of fiction and non-fiction which have been translated in about 30 countries. He was a professor at the Institut d’Etudes politiques in Paris for 20 years and a visiting professor at the New York University, San Diego and Texas A&M. After studying at the universities of Paris I and Paris VII Diderot, and then at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Bruckner became maître de conférences at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and a contributor to the Nouvel Observateur.

He published Parias (Parias), Lunes de fiel (Evil Angels) (adapted as a film by Roman Polanski) and Les voleurs de beauté (The Beauty Stealers) (Prix Renaudot in 1997). Among his essays are La tentation de l’innocence (“The Temptation of Innocence,” Prix Médicis in 1995) and, famously, Le Sanglot de l’Homme blanc (The Tears of the White Man), an attack on narcissistic and destructive policies intended to benefit the Third World, and more recently La tyrannie de la pénitence (2006), a book on the West’s endless self-criticism, translated as “The Tyranny of Guilt” (2010). Some of his key literary work includes Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy, The Paradox of Love and Philosophy of longevity