Pierre Bordage is a French science fiction author. His space opera trilogy The Warriors of silence, as well as the wang cycle are considered pillars of the science fiction French of the 1990s, then mainly dominated by English-speaking authors. Prolific author, playing with genres (historical fantasy with The Enjomineur, science fantasy with The Fables of the Humpur), he wrote some screenplays for the cinema, tried his hand at theater, as well as to comics. Pierre Bordage has received numerous literary prizes such as the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (1993) and the Grand Prix Paul-Féval for Popular Literature (2000).
Awakening the Spirit
Raised on a Vendée farm, Pierre Bordage grew up in a deeply Catholic family from rural areas. One of his uncles is a priest. Very early on, he developed a taste for writing, but the school system of the time did not suit him. Subject to moose mystics, he joined the minor seminary on his own between 1965 and 1967. He familiarized himself with the Bible, Latin and discovered the ancient mythologies. Everything suggests that he will become a priest like his uncle. However, Pierre Bordage said he was disappointed with the teaching of the priests, which he experienced as indoctrination and ended up moving away from religion.
After a bachelor’s degree in 1973, he turned his attention to writing again. He was in his first year of modern literature at the University of Nantes when he discovered the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and other English-speaking sci-fi classics. It’s a revelation for him. These stories remind him of the mythological tales that fascinated him as a child. But he does not obtain his master’s degree in letters at the end of his schooling. Pierre Bordage then multiplied his travels, particularly in Asia. He spent three months in India with his partner in 1975. The “almost palpable” spirituality of this country “transformed” him, allowing him to rediscover the impulses of his childhood. He looks at eastern philosophy, the tao, tries to understand the notion of non-religious spirituality. We will find this fascination for this Indian spirituality in many of his writings. In 1976, he wrote his first unpublished novel, and would not try his luck again until he turned 30.
He then tries various trades. Maintains an esoteric bookstore in Paris from 1981 to 1984. Sells brioches in the markets of the Gers in 1985. Take advantage of this period to isolate himself and write the two thousand pages of the novel The Warriors of Silence in six months, in a large school notebook. This writing experience, this “gush” in his words, is not edited directly. Pierre Bordage is unaware that at that time French SF was in the process of sinking. He therefore only receives rejection letters from publishers. He therefore takes up a succession of various trades.
From travel to pen
In 1992 a first editor, Vaugirard, offered him to write the cycle of Rohel the conqueror, series of 14 volumes, in order to learn concretely the profession of writer and its discipline. In 1993, Bordage offered The Warriors of Silence to Pierre Michaut, director of Atalante editions. The work is finally published in three volumes and in large format. The first volume is an unexpected and immediate success. Various prizes are awarded to him. The other two volumes of the trilogy come out, and the last one, The Citadel Hyponeros, is hailed as “one of the masterpieces of French science fiction” by Le Figaro. Wang’s cycle appeared in 1998, and allowed Pierre Bordage to “definitely make his entry into the big leagues”, winning the ephemeral Prix de la Tour Eiffel.
Hired to innovate Atlantis, the sons of the golden ray, a universe of video games, Bordage has the opportunity to reach the American readership. In 1999, he moved to Kansas City (USA), and stayed there for two years. He will be inspired by it for his novel Orcheron, and get out Seed of immortals in the wake, novel devoted to patenting genetic.
After writing three volumes of Rohel and the novel Terra Mater, second volume of Warriors of silence, Pierre Bordage decides to devote himself entirely to writing, and lives with his pen. He is described as a very regular and hardworking author, able to write about ten pages a day, which allows him to put out a novel every five or six months. He sees himself as a “Jansenist of style ”Whose writing is very symmetrical, a characteristic he would have inherited from his years at the minor seminary and his love of Latin. He goes out into nature a lot to find inspiration, and favors walks by the water.
Writer of the unconscious, Pierre Bordage does not create a plan or structure his stories. He admits that he is not the author of his books, he is content to welcome a story that passes through him. He then reads himself again in order to detect the wrong notes in the music of his work.
Bibliography
Seed of immortals, Editions Atalante 1999
- LThe Fables of the Humpur, I read 2005
The Last Men, I read 2005
The unnamed Arcanum, La Branche, coll. collection Friday 13, 2011
The day the war ended, Au diable vauvert, 2014
The White Ladies, L’Atalante, 2015
Resonances, I read, coll. “New Millennia”, 2015
Echoes in time, I read, 2017
inKARMAtions, Leha86 editions, 2019
Tales of sages from other worlds and other times, Threshold, 2020
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