US Writer Norman Mailer Wins Top France Prize
A wire report of Mailer, 83, being made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor by the French ambassador in New York on 3 March 2006, recalling his lifelong attachment to France and the language he 'never could master.'
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On 3 March 2006 the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, decorated Mailer — then eighty-three — as a Chevalier (Knight) of the French Legion of Honor, the country’s highest distinction, “for Mailer’s contribution to literature and for his ties to France.” This Agence-France-Presse wire report (reprinted by DNA India) records the ceremony.
Mailer, who “moves with difficulty and spoke seated,” recalled his long attachment to France: “I’ve had an exciting relation to France all my life, from my young years in Brooklyn when I thought that Paris was the place to be.” He had studied at the Sorbonne after the war and professed his love of French, “this language that I adore and was never able to master.” Of the honor he quipped, “You can see I’m quite pleased to receive this award.” Mailer is among fewer than five hundred Americans to have received the decoration created by Napoleon in 1802.
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Editorial note
The source file for this entry was staged misnamed 03-16a-fulltext.md under the 2003 folder; its content is unambiguously a 3 March 2006 event (Mailer aged 83). It is placed here in 2006. No Lennon legacy-id is assigned pending confirmation against the print register’s 2006 listing.