Tony Duvert

Tony Duvert (July 2, 1945 – August 2008) was a French writer and philosopher. In the 1970s he achieved some renown, winning the Prix Medicis in 1973 for his novel Paysage de Fantaisie. Duvert's writings are notable both for their style and core themes: the celebration and defence of pedophilia, and criticism of modern child-rearing. In the 1970s attitudes to sexual liberation and child sexuality allowed Duvert to express himself publicly. However, when attitudes altered markedly in the 1980s, he was left feeling frustrated and oppressed.

Tony Duvert was born on 2 July 1945 in Villeneuve-le-Roi, Val-de-Marne. As a child he was shy and withdrawn, but was later to write that his sex life began when he was eight. Expelled from school at twelve for homosexuality, he was sent by his parents to a psychiatrist for treatment: the methods used he described as brutal and humiliating. He ran away from home and attempted suicide. In 1961, Duvert joined the high school Jean-Baptiste Corot in Savigny-sur-Orge, where he was a brilliant student, but with few friends. After high school he moved to Paris to begin an arts degree but preferred to devote himself to writing.

Duvert made his literary debut in 1967 with Récidive, published by Jerome Lindon of Editions de Minuit, who recognised his potential. However the novel's subject matter made the publisher nervous, and the book was printed in a limited edition of 712 copies available only through subscription and selected bookstores.

Highly productive, Duvert soon produced three successive novels: Interdit de séjour and Portrait d'homme-couteau in 1969, and Le Voyageur in 1970, which were also sold by subscription. As well as their political aspect in promoting sexual relations between adults and children, and criticising of bourgeois society, these first four novels featured narrative and stylistic experimentation in the form of rambling style, typographic games, the absence or multiplicity of plots, jumbled chronology or facts, and lack of punctuation.

Thanks to Roland Barthes, Duvert achieved public recognition in 1973 with his novel Paysage de fantaisie (Strange Landscape), which won the Prix Medicis, and which was greeted warmly by critics. For Claude Mauriac the book revealed "gifts and art that the word talent is not enough to express"

In 1974, Duvert expounded his ideology at length in Le Bon Sexe Illustré (Good Sex Illustrated) in which he sharply criticised sex education and the modern western family. Critics praised its humor and his ability to observe the false pretenses of bourgeois society.

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