Editor Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens died last January 2nd in a car accident in Marie-Galante (Petites Antilles). He was the editor of Georges Perec, Marguerite Duras, Emmanuel Carrère, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Rolin… He was 73. In this portfolio, photographer Hélène Bamberger pays tribute to him with a selection of portraits of writers he published.
Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens seemed like a young page from an Italian Renaissance painting during the time I knew him with Marguerite Duras, who, for him, had only fondness. Years later, I saw him again when my friend Jean Rolin joined POL, his publishing house. I started to take portraits of authors for him like my colleague John Foley, and under the baton of Jean Paul Hirsch, the great conductor of the publishing house, who organized events and meetings carefully and with tact.
Since then, many of these writers have become friends, and I’m delighted to see them with each new book. I never get tired of meeting authors for the very first time who are publishing their first book, still completely astounded to soon be in bookstores, nor do I get tired of reading their book and understand why Paul selected this manuscript from a pile of others in the mail.
The special thing about POL is that they publish a lot of new authors. I am delighted to have done their very first photo shoot, but also to have read and loved the books of these last two: Francis Tabouret and Suzanne Duval. Barely out yet and already their first Salon du Livre.
Hélène Bamberger
Hélène Bamberger, born in Paris in 1956, is a French photographer and member of Agence Cosmos.
