Edited by:
Massimo Martini
When talking about mountain literature, we cannot forget the French writer Roger Frison-Roche.
Born in Paris in 1906 to a family of Savoyard origin, he left the capital at the age of 17 and decided to move to Chamonix. At first an employee of a travel agency, he then obtained his licence as a guide and ski instructor and founded the first mountaineering school.
Besides his great qualities as an alpinist, he was able to share his great passion by writing novels that have become veritable 'literary phenomena', such as 'Primo di cordata', written in two and a half months.
Published in 1941 during the occupation, this novel, which recounts the hard life of mountain guides in the 1920s, sold more than 3 million copies in 50 years.
Despite his success with the public, Frison-Roche has never been recognised by the great French intellectuals as one of their own.
He was a war correspondent in Tunisia in 1942; taken prisoner by the Germans, he was transferred to France, where he escaped and took an active part in the Resistance.
From 1947 onwards, he explored the Sahara, Black Africa and the Arctic, and in 1955 he crossed the Sahara on board one of the first Citroën 2-horsepower cars.
He was one of the great figures of French mountaineering, a journalist, writer, traveller and above all a great mountain lover. Dean of the guides of Chamonix, where he lived, he died on 17 September 1999 at the age of 93, due to respiratory failure.