The 78-year-old co-founded the Actes Sud editions. Jean-Paul Capitani, 78, died Tuesday of a fall from a bicycle in Arles, announced his publishing house. Married to the former Minister of Culture Françoise Nyssen, he was part, with the father of his wife, Hubert Nyssen, of the founders of the Actes Sud editions, born in 1978. They will make known in France authors like Paul Auster, Nancy Huston or Stieg Larsson, whose thriller translated from Swedish “Millennium” reached one million sales in 2009 and ensured the publishing house unprecedented financial prosperity.
In 2004, Actes Sud won its first Prix Goncourt, the highest award for French publishing, for “Le Soleil des Scorta” by Laurent Gaudé, which sold 400,000 copies. Then a second in 2012 with “Sermon on the Fall of Rome” by Jérôme Ferrari. Having become one of the largest independent publishing groups in France, Actes Sud obtained a third Goncourt award in 2015 with “Boussole” by Mathias Énard, then a fourth in 2017 with “L’Ordre du jour” by Éric Vuillard and a fifth in 2018 with “Their children after them” by Nicolas Mathieu.
A huge contribution “to the aura of Actes Sud”
Commercial and development director for many years while also having a publishing activity, Jean-Paul Capitani “contributed enormously, with his wife, to the aura and development of Actes Sud”, underlines the publishing house. at AFP. He notably developed the beautiful books sector there, publishing artists such as Sophie Calle.
An agronomist by training, he has also developed the publication of books on botany, nature or agroecology. He is at the origin of the “Domaine du Possible” collection, directed by the writer, director and environmental activist Cyril Dion. Jean-Paul Capitani had left his position on the executive board of Actes Sud but chaired the supervisory board.