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French 'porn novelist' Esparbec dies aged 87: Publisher
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Pailler's works included books with titles like "The Sin of the Flesh", "The Roving Hands", "The Panties" although his best known novel was more demurely called "The Pharmacist". (Shutterstock.com/Chinnapong/File)
F
rench pornographic novelist Georges Pailler, who wrote racy titles under the pen name of Esparbec and insisted pornographic writing was an art form, has died aged 87, his publisher said Tuesday.
La Musardine editions announced "with sadness" that he had died on Monday.
Pailler's works included books with titles like "The Sin of the Flesh", "The Roving Hands", "The Panties" although his best known novel was more demurely called "The Pharmacist".
He insisted that pornographic writing could be source of literary quality.
"There are great thrillers, good science fiction books, so why not good pornography books?" he asked.
"Why should pornography be left to second-rate writers? People of no talent? Why should they be seen in the dustbin of literature and in sex shops?"
Read also: Acclaimed Swedish author Per Olov Enquist dies aged 85
Among his greatest fans was Georges Wolinski, the cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo who was killed in the terror attack on the magazine by Islamist gunmen in 2015.
"What Esparbec writes is scandalous, dirty, fascinating and scary. Like everything we repress," he wrote in Charlie Hebdo.
