He is a survivor, a man who fought an entire year against jaw cancer, who was the guest of Sonia Devillers on France Inter this November 8, 2022. Guillaume Durand (70 years old) came to talk about his latest book, Let’s have lunch on the grass (Editions Bouquins), which received the Renaudot prize. Passionate about art like his father, the late gallery owner Lucien Durand, he immersed himself and the public in this work of Manet which was so controversial. Without taboo, he also discusses the disease he faced and which has not disappeared from his life, far from it.
When the journalist throws him “you have panache in healing“, Guillaume Durand retorts without delay: “First of all, I’m not cured, we don’t know at all, it’s very random but i’m fine. I learned to live with that.” An evil that runs through her book, as Sonia Devillers indicates, a sentence that her guest comments on with passion and sincerity: “I felt not Manet’s talent, since I don’t have it, but the fact of living death on the heels of it. You have to take the fear of death by the hand, dominate it and keep moving forward.”
I was saved by a facial surgeon
At the microphone, the TV star explains why he decided to speak so openly about his cancer, a word he does not make taboo: “If I talk about it, it’s not through a kind of spectacular self-expressionism, which would be rare, but it’s also because I lived in services where people suffer a lot. I think we need to talk about it. It’s as important as social and political issues, hospitals, clinics… (…) I was saved by a facial surgeon, I owe him everything, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Since I didn’t hurt anywhere. I had a toothache, but in the realm of a doliprane. I was just a little tired. It was beyond suspicion. And I felt that too for Manet.” Because the body of the painter of genius was devoured by syphillis, then specifies the journalist from France Inter.
half a mummy
In The Sunday newspaperGuillaume Durand had described in very strong words his state of health, describing himself as a “half mummy” who lost 12 kilos. He explained that he had struggled for a whole year before finally getting better, listening to the radio, he who had worked there for so long. An ordeal he will never forget, in particular because her voice has changed since his delicate operation, as he told last January to the Parisian and at Point. If his health remains under surveillance, he can continue to share time with his loved ones, his five children in the first place, Juliette, 43, Arthur, 41, Donald, 37, then Joseph, 24 and Angélique, 14. from a second marriage.