Gérard de Cortanze

Gérard de Cortanze (born 22 July 1948 in Paris) is a French writer, essayist, translator and literary critic.

He collaborated with Le Figaro Magazine, as well as literary writing and is responsible for the Folio Biographies collection launched by Gallimard in 2005.

He translated works of Spanish writers, such as the Mexican Jose Emilio Pacheco, the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, Argentine exile in France Juan José Saer, the notebooks of the Spanish painter Antonio Saura (1930–1998), and poems, like those of Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo (1892–1938) and the Chilean Vicente Huidobro (1893–1948).

The award-winning Assam tells the story of Aventino Roero Di Cortanze, an Italian aristocrat at the time of the French invasion of Italy.

The first section of the story dramatizes his response to the invasion and his involvement in the battle scenes, which are perhaps modelled on those in War and Peace or Red Badge of Courage.