décès de ROLAND WAGNER

Quelques mots de N. Lee Wood (écrivain, ex-femme de Norman Spinrad) :

"Roland C. Wagner was an old friend, a very funny and talented writer, and an enthusiastic if eclectic musician. Somewhere I still have a small record (long before CDs!) he and his band recorded with the contribution of a somewhat perplexed operatic singer ad-libbing as best she could with the tune. It was terrible, but so terrible it turned out actually good. I once buried a small nod in his direction in my novel, Looking for the Mahdi: "... His Excellency was dressed in a pair of faded Levi's torn at the knees, a pair of scuffed Adidas track shoes, and a T-shirt with an iron-on photo of the deranged looking lead singer from the French rock group Brain Damage." The novel was later published in a French edition translated by someone who knew both me and Roland Wagner. Apparently, the translator had a bit of fun by ever so slightly embellishing this bit of the text. After it came out in France, Roland ran up to me during a Salon du Livre in Paris, his trademark bright red hair flying, and demanded to see what I'd written in the original. A bit worried, I showed him. He read it, then grinned and hugged me, while repeating, "Dérangé? Moi?" and laughing, pleased with the description. We were at many parties and had many dinners with him and his lovely partner, Sylvie Denis, and I remember how proud he was when he became a father. He was a beautiful, talented, amazingly optimistic man and the world is so much poorer without him in it. J'ai le coeur brisé, mon doux ami dérangé, tu nous manqueras."

(Ansible, octobre 2012)