He became interested in pedagogy and was asked in 1999 by the French government to reform literature teaching in secondary schools. In 1985, he was appointed professor of French at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Later in life, sitting before the remains of a plentiful meal in his Oxford college, he would quietly aver that “nothing should be wasted”.Īn undergraduate in French literature at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, Alain became an assistant lecturer in French literature there in the 1970s and wrote (under the pseudonym A Ranvier) for Le Peuple Français, a politically independent journal viewing history from a working-class perspective. Alain excelled at his state boarding school, the Lycée Ferdinand Foch in Rodez, which had running water and provided regular meals. His parents, Marie (nee Maurel) and Ernest Viala, were smallholders. Alain was celebrated for his work on early modern France and his 20 books, 150 articles and seven CD audio box sets spanning his country’s literary history.Īlain was born in Saint-Affrique in the Aveyron region of south-western France into a family of limited means. My friend and colleague Alain Viala, who has died aged 73 of a heart attack, was emeritus professor of French literature at Oxford University.
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