Dominique Lapierre Obituary, Death – It has been confirmed by the Mondadori publishing house that Lapierre passed away on December 4th, 2022, at the age of 91. Chatelaillon-Plage, located in the region of Charente-Maritime in France, is where Dominique Lapierre was born. When he was thirteen years old, he went to the United States of America with his father, who served in the diplomatic service (Consul General of France). After completing his education at a Jesuit school in New Orleans, he went on to work as a paper boy for the New Orleans Item. His interest in traveling, writing, and automobiles developed over time.
Lapierre decided to take a trip across the United States during his summer break, so he remodeled the 1927 Nash that his mother had given to him and set out on the road. As a means of supporting himself, he painted mail boxes. After some time had passed, he applied for and was awarded a scholarship to study the Aztec civilization in Mexico. He lived an exciting life by hitchhiking across the entirety of the United States, writing articles, washing windows in churches, and delivering lectures. He even found a job as a siren cleaner on a ship that was traveling back to Europe.
One day, a truck driver who picked him up on the way to Chicago and took him to his destination stole his suitcase. He was the one who located the driver, not the police. He received a payment of one hundred dollars from the Chicago Tribune for his exclusive story. His first book, “A Dollar for a Thousand Kilometers,” was the result of an adventure that began with him having only thirty dollars in his pocket and ended with him having traveled twenty thousand miles. It quickly became one of the most popular purchases made in postwar France and throughout other European nations.
After returning from his honeymoon in Paris, he found out that he would be required to serve in the French army. Following his year of service in the tank regiment, he was moved to the SHAPE headquarters to work as an interpreter. One day, he was eating lunch in the cafeteria when he met a young American corporal named Larry Collins. Collins was a Yale graduate and was serving in the military. They hit it off right away and became fast friends. After Collins was discharged from the military, Procter & Gamble made him an offer for a job there.
Two days before he was scheduled to begin his new job at Procter & Gamble, the United Press made him an offer for a job as a caption writer at their office in Paris, but the salary was significantly lower than what he would be making at P&G. After accepting the job offer from United Press, Collins was quickly recruited by Newsweek to work as a correspondent for the publication in the Middle East. Following his discharge from the military, Lapierre secured a position as a reporter for the publication Paris Match. Alexandra, the Lapierres’ first child, took Collins as her godfather as soon as she was born.
Collins and Lapierre crossed paths while working on separate projects on multiple occasions. Despite the fact that they were friends, they were forced to compete with one another for stories. However, they came to the conclusion that working together would be the best way to tell a story that would be interesting to readers in both French and English. Their first book to become a bestseller was titled “Is Paris Burning?” and was published in thirty different languages. In this book, they combined two distinct research methodologies: the contemporary approach of investigation journalism and the more traditional approach of historical research.
After that, they stayed in Jerusalem for a total of four years in order to piece together the events that led to the establishment of the state of Israel in order to write the book O Jerusalem! Lapierre was pleased with himself because, as a result of having spent a significant amount of time in Jerusalem, he was familiar with every alley, square, street, and building in the Holy City.
Is Paris Burning? and City of Joy, both of which were written by Lapierre, have been adapted into feature films. Is Paris Burning? was written in collaboration with Larry Collins. Before Collins passed away in 2005, Lapierre and Collins collaborated on a number of other books, the most recent of which was titled “Is New York Burning?” (2005). Lapierre spoke fluent Bengali