Released on April 5, the autobiographical work in which the singer retraces his career and evokes his cancer, signs a box in bookstores.
The success of Pagny by Florent seems set to last in bookstores. Three weeks after its release, the first autobiography of the 61-year-old artist has sold 64,608 copies (including 14,698 this week), according to our information.
Entered directly number one in book sales in France when it was released, this work written with four hands with Emmanuelle Cosso aroused the interest of fans since it comes a year after the announcement by Florent Pagny of his lung cancerwhich he has been battling ever since.
In this book, the interpreter of My freedom of thought also recounts his fight against the disease, which came to upset him during the writing of his book. “When the disease arrived, the first version of 500 pages was already written”, remembers Emmanuelle Cosso, co-author of the book, at the microphone of BFMTV.
She adds: “There was the book to reread for Florent, and this diagnosis which falls. For a while it called everything into question, because you only had to think about health.”
“I get the uppercut”
Florent Pagny therefore added this ordeal to the story of his autobiography and returned in particular to the announcement of the diagnosis, in his dressing room at the tele-hook The Voice where he officiates as a coach:
“I receive the uppercut. I don’t take the time to cash it. I hang up. Ten seconds later, I push the door of the dressing room and head for the set,” he says in his book.
Pagny by Florent also traces the career of the artist in music, from his childhood to his rise and also evokes his private life without detour: he recounts his troubles with the taxman, his story with Vanessa Paradis and his relationship with his wife, Azucena whom he met in 1992.
“(Florent Pagny) is someone who lays himself bare. He does not euphemise anything and tells everything because he knows that each of the fights that have marked his life, he has made a strength of it”, confided Isabelle Saporta, director of Fayard editions, on the set of BFMTV in early April.
In remission in June 2022, Florent Pagny recently resumed treatment due to a relapse. After a canceled tour due to his health, the artist must soon return to the stage with several dates scheduled at festivals this summer.
