Académie Goncourt

The 84-year-old philosopher Bernard Pivot, the president of the Académie Goncourt, a French literary society, talked of the sexy Swedish girls of his youth.

He repeatedly contributed to the collective battle against forgetting the Holocaust by mining his own memories, and thanks to his oeuvre and political activity he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, made a member of the Académie Goncourt, and given the German Peace Prize, among other honors.

The prize, selected by 10 members of the Académie Goncourt, comes with a symbolic award of 10 euros, or about $12, but it usually results in sharp spikes in sales in France and beyond.

Her death was announced by the Académie Goncourt, where she had been a member since 1983 and president from 2002 to 2014.

The Academie Goncourt, whose prize she won with her novel "To Forget Palermo," said she died late Wednesday in her hometown of Marseille.