In the extensive biography of Alain Moreau, an autodidact born in Lyon, a city he abhors, living in the Marais for almost 50 years, let us remember two feats of arms.
The first was the headbutt he gave one day to Jean-Edern Hallier (another Marais resident, residing at Place des Vosges) because the pamphleteer, then his associate at Editions de l'Herne, had looked him down. the entry to a literary cocktail.
“Jean-Edern despised me a lot because I was an autodidact from real estate and he and his gang were intellectuals who were aiming for the French Academy. He didn’t despise me a little, he despised me a lot,” he explained to Livres hebdo in 2016.
The second is the publication of Suicide instructions for use (Editions Alain Moreau et Compagnie, 1982), a literary dissertation on suicide through the ages with a practical chapter for taking action, which sold 100.000 copies and caused a scandal in the fundamentalist and right-thinking Catholic community.
Among the notable works published by the man who was publisher from 1971 to 2001, we note B like Barbouzes (1975) File F, as tax fraud (1975) The Papon affair (1983) How to scam your banker (1987) or Lyon or Blood and Money (1978), by Pierre Mérindol, through which Moreau settles scores with his hometown.
A libertarian at heart, Alain Moreau is also an informed “Célinien” who has recently dedicated several documentaries to Louis-Ferdinand Céline, broadcast on Arte. Interview.