François Maspero was born in 1932. His youth was marked by the cultural environment of his family, several of whom were noted scholars, and his parents' participation in the
Resistance. His father,
Henri Maspero, a sinologist and professor at the
Collège de France, died at
Buchenwald, but his mother survived the
Ravensbrück concentration camp. His grandfather,
Gaston Maspero, who died before his birth, was a famous
Egyptologist. François Maspero opened a book store named L'Escalier In 1983, Maspero publishing house was transformed into the publisher , later bought by Vivendi Universal Publishing, later
Editis.
After 1983 In the 1990s and 2000s François Maspero published several reportages for the French newspaper
Le Monde. In 2001, for example, he produced a long narrative about a summer passed on the Algerian coast with the title "Deux ou trois choses que j’ai vues de l’Algérie". In 2009, at the 50th anniversary of the Éditions Maspero publishing house, an exposition in honor of Francois Maspero, "François Maspero et les paysages humains, " was organized by Bruno Guichard (Maison des Passages, Lyon) and Alain Léger (Librairie À plus d'un titre, Lyon) in the
Musée de l'Imprimerie. In parallel to this exposition a book was edited as an exposition catalogue and
Festschrift to honor live and work of Maspero. The title of the book was "François Maspero et les paysages humains" and it was edited by Bruno Guichard, Julien Hage and Alain Leger. Maspero was criticized by
Situationists such as
Guy Debord, who used the term "masperize" to describe the falsification or corruption of a text, for instance by deleting segments from a quote without marking them. == Works ==