French surrealist author Julien Gracq dies aged 97

At the Lycée Claude Bernard in Paris during the 1950s a number of 16-year-olds were fascinated by their history and geography teacher, Monsieur Poirier. He was small, with short hair and dressed in a dark suit. Punctual and efficient, no one ever thought of playing tricks on him. When his teaching was over he gathered up his papers and went away. The reason for the particular interest in him was the discovery that Louis Poirier, who has died aged 97, was in fact Julien Gracq, the novelist, who had won (and refused) the Goncourt prize in 1951.
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