19 Secondes 83 Centiaemes (Paperback or Softback)

This is the story of a few seconds that extends to a whole life. Nineteen seconds and eighty-three hundredth of seconds precisely. It is Wednesday 16th of October 1968, in Mexico. Tommie Smith is the 200 meter Olympic champion. Tom has been dreaming of this since childhood, and when he climbs on the podium's highest step he raises his black gloved fist. He does this in the company of John Carlos, his companion from the American team. In the slightly sticky atmosphere of this night of the16 October 1968, this gesture revolutions the world. It is a silent rebellion that follows a breath-taking performance. This is a gesture that means to put an end to segregation, the lynching of black people, the humiliation, the buses and housing that are reserved to whites.
Pierre-Louis Basse was ten. He remembers the race. He remembers the broadcast on television which he watched with his father, a sport teacher in Nanterre. He also remembers the death of Martin Luther King, the voice of Joan Baez and the war in Vietnam. He remembers girls in pleated skirts and president Pompidou. Remembering Tommie Smith mythic race makes Jean-Louis Basse talk about his generation.

Pierre-Louis Basse was born in 1958 in Nantes. He is the author of the biography Guy Môquet, Une enfance fusillée published by Stock in 2000.
He has also published a trilogy of social novels: Ma ligne 13 (Le Rocher, 2003), Ça va mal finir (Le Rocher, 2005) and Ma chambre au Triangle d'Or (Stock, 2006). He also published Séville 82 (Privé, 2006).
A journalist on Europe 1 radio, Pierre-Louis Basse lives in Saint-Ouen, outside of Paris.

Après une vie consacrée à la radio, l’écrivain Pierre-Louis Basse fut le conseiller « Grands Événements » du Président François Hollande.
Il a publié, entre autres, Guy Môquet, une enfance fusillée (Stock, 2000), Guy Môquet au Fouquet’s (Équateurs, 2007), Comme un Garçon (Stock, 2009) et Gagner à en mourir (Robert Laffont, 2012).