Jacques Chessex (photo: ©2009 Ellen Wallace)
Yverdon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A man widely considered to be one of Switzerland’s greatest writers, the unassuming Jacques Chessex who was the first non-French winner of the prestigious Goncourt literary prize, died Friday night in Yverdon just after a public presentation in the town’s library, surrounded by the books that were his great love. He collapsed when his heart gave out and died shortly afterwards. Chessex, age 75, was the author of 31 books, most of them slim but incisive novels famous for their eloquent language. They often described the world around him, in French-speaking Switzerland, but captured the threads of human relations that run deeper than local stories: “Explorer of the human soul in all its complexity,” were the words Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz used to describe him.
US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle filed their income taxes, which show him earning $2.6 million in 2008 from the sale of his two autobiographical non-fiction books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams From My Father. The couple also earned about $200,000 in salaries and had a small amount of investment income. They paid $855,000 in federal taxes and gave $172,050 to charity, reports the Washington Post.
