I will explain. This is at a dinner held at the Neuilly house in 1977 to award a literary prize, the Diamond Pen, which Arnaud Clerc himself had established and endowed. Arnaud's wife, identified only as Mme. Arnaud Clerc, is the hostess and member of the prize jury, which is shown at top left.
Somewhat oddly, the winner of the prize for his novel Bakchich is the author Michel Clerc. As far as I can tell, there is no connection between the two Clercs, and the surprising coincidence goes unmentioned in the article.
In the middle left photo, that is Michel Clerc seated and Arnaud Clerc standing behind him. They could be brothers. The photo below that shows Michel Clerc with the ever-present Mme. I haven't tracked down all the other individuals, but that is the former prime minister of Laos at upper right.
I did look into Michel Clerc a bit and found one amusing item that I will share in the next post.
When you look at that table with the jury, and imagine that's Henry Kissinger sitting there. Then imagine again it is the Ruby family in 1961. I was knocked out by the rum cake and fell over in my chair.
ReplyDeleteThe Kissinger connection is mentioned in the article. The dinner is about three years after the peace talks.
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