Jacques Lacarrière was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer. He studied moral philosophy, classical literature and Hindu philosophy

Hindu philosophy

Hindu philosophy is divided into six schools of thought, or , which accept the Vedas as supreme revealed scriptures. Three other schools do not accept the Vedas as authoritative...

 and literature

Hindi literature

Hindi literature , is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being Bhakti ; Shringar ; Veer-Gatha ; and Adhunik...

. Professionally, he was also a prominent critic, journalist, and essayist.

A passionate admirer of ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 and its mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, his essay L'été grec (Greek Summer) was an immense popular success, as were his following classical works Maria of Egypt and Dictionnaire amoureux de la Grèce (Dictionary for one who loves Greece). Of interest to ethnographers and ecologists is his Chemin faisant: Mille kilomètres à pied à travers la France.

Lacarrière's 1973 literary essay, Les Gnostiques, is also well respected for its insights into the early Christian religious phenomenon of Gnosticism

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

.

For the whole of his work, he was awarded le Grand Prix de l'Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

 (the Great Prize of the French Academy) in 1991.

He died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 on 17 September 2005, following complications from orthopedic surgery

Orthopedic surgery

Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system...

. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, off the island of Spetses

Spetses

Spetses is an island and a municipality in the Islands regional unit, Attica, Greece. It is sometimes included as one of the Saronic Islands. Until 1948, it was part of the old prefecture of Argolidocorinthia, which is now split into Argolis and Corinthia...

.

Translated into English

• The God-Possessed, London: George Allen & Unwin LTD, 1963.
• Men Possessed By God. The Story of the Desert Monks of Ancient Christendom, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1964.
• The Gnostics, San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1989.(ISBN 0872862437)
• The Wisdom of Ancient Greece (Wisdom Of Series), edited, NY: Abbeville Press, 1996. (ISBN 0789202433)

In French

• Les Gnostiques, 1973, Idées Gallimard (rééd. Albin Michel, Coll. Spiritualités Vivantes Poche, 1998)
• Les Hommes ivres de Dieu, 1975, Fayard (rééd. Seuil, Coll. Sagesses, 1983)
• Chemin faisant, mille kilomètres à pied à travers la France d'aujourd'hui, 1974 (rééd. 1983, Fayard)
• L’été grec : une Grèce quotidienne de 4 000 ans, 1976, Plon
  Plon (publisher)
  Plon is a French book publishing company, founded in 1852 by Henri Plon and his two brothers.The Plon family were Walloons coming from Nivelle, France. One of their ancestors is probably the Danish typographer Jehan Plon who lived at the end of the 16th century.-History:The Editions Plon were...
  
  , Paris
• Promenades dans la Grèce antique, 1978, guide Hachette (éd. commentée et ill. des Voyages de Pausanias le Périégète)
• En cheminant avec Hérodote, 1981, Seghers (rééd. 1982 par Hachette, coll. Pluriel ISBN 2-01008-771-2)
• Marie d’Égypte, 1983 (rééd. 1999 Collection Points-Seuil)
• Au cœur des Mythologies, en suivant les Dieux, 1984, Hachette, coll. Pluriel ISBN 2-01278-888-2 (rééd. 1998, éd. Folio, ISBN 2-01-012112-0)
• Ce bel aujourd'hui, 1989, Jean-Claude Lattès
• Dictionnaire amoureux de la Grèce, Plon, collection Dictionnaire amoureux, 2001, ISBN 978-2259190763
• La Poussière du monde, Nil Éditions, 1997
• Lexique érotique de la Grèce, Plon, 2003
• La Grèce des Hommes Jacques Lacarrière & Emanuel Sanz, Editions Livre Total SA Lausanne (Suisse), Luce Wilquin éditrice Dour, 1994,ISDN 2-88161-064-1 (épuisé)