Bernard Fougères, born Bernard Victor Theophile Isidore Fougères Julliot (France, 1934 – Guayaquil, May 5, 2018) was a French journalist, poet, and TV host who resided in Ecuador since May 1, 1965. His poem “Guayaquil de mil hojas” [Guayaquil of a thousand pages] won the 2nd Prize of the 1977 Ismael Pérez Pazmiño Poetry Contest. His winning poem was published in the anthology “Poesía ecuatoriana del siglo XX: Años 1976, 1977, 1978” (Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Núcleo del Guayas, 1976). He worked as a TV personality for more than 50 years in shows such as El Show de Bernard and Bernard en la noche.
Background
Bernard Fougères was born in Cossé-le-Vivien, France in 1934. In 1960, Bernard Fougères spent five years in Morocco as a professor of French literature and had a television program. In 1965 the French Ministry of Foreign Relations appointed him director of the French Alliance, where he had to choose between the countries of Nicaragua, Turkey and Ecuador. After choosing Ecuador, he spent three decades at Ecuavisa (a television network), where he was an interviewer for one of its best-known programs, El Show de Bernard. He divorced his first wife with whom he had two children in 1966 and in 1967 he met Evelina Cucalón, whom he married shortly after until he became a widower in 2006. On May 12, 2011, he was part of Ecuador TV with the cultural program Bernard en la noche.
Works
“Guayaquil de mil hojas” in Poesía ecuatoriana del siglo XX: Años 1976, 1977, 1978 (Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Núcleo del Guayas, 1979).