Voisard, Alexandre, 1930-2024

Alexandre Voisard was born on September 14, 1930 in Pruntrut in what is now the canton of Jura, Switzerland. He was a poet and short story author, and won the Prix du Jura libre (1967), the Swiss Schiller Foundation's Gesamttwerkspreis (1994) the Prix Edouard-Rod (2008) and the Prix Alain Bosquet (2011). H was elected to the Académie Mallarmé in Paris in 1990, and joined the Académie européenne de poésie in 1997. In 1957, he married Thérèse Laval, and they had five children. They ran a bookstore together while Alexandre wrote poetry. Voisard actively supported the separation of the canton of Jura, and became a founding member of the Jura parliament, serving 1979-1983 as a Social Democrat. He spent much of his later life living in France, just over the border from Switzerland. Voisard died on October 15, 2024.