PARIS (AFP) - French author Julien Gracq, one of the last links with the pre-World War II Surrealist movement, has died at the age of 97, his family said Sunday.
Gracq, whose real name was Louis Poirier, died on Saturday in hospital near his home in western France. He had been taken ill at the start of the week.
His first book "Au chateau dArgol" (The Castle of Argol), published in 1938, was favourably reviewed by the Surrealist leader Andre Breton, who became a friend and a strong influence.
Renowned for his disapproval of literary honours, Gracq turned down the Prix Goncourt for his best-known work "Le Rivage des Syrtes" (The Opposite Shore) in 1951.
Private to the point of reclusiveness, he shunned celebrity -- at one time refusing an invitation from president Francois Mitterrand to dine at the Elysee palace with the visiting Queen Elizabeth of England.
President Nicolas Sarkozy saluted Gracqs memory, describing him as "one of the greatest French writers of the 20th century, who far from the worlds of fashion and society built up a system of original thought and a powerful body of work."
Born in 1910, Gracq trained as a teacher in the early 1930s and in World War II was a prisoner of war in Germany. He continued teaching up till retirement in 1970.
In all he wrote some 20 books, the last -- "Entretiens" (Interviews) -- in 2002. They were not best-sellers, but had consistent critical acclaim. He was one of the few writers to have his work published by the prestigious La Pleiade editions in his own lifetime.
