CNN confirmed Bourdain’s death on Friday and said the cause of death was suicide.

Bourdain was in France working on an upcoming episode of his award-winning CNN series, “Parts Unknown.” His close friend Eric Ripert, the French chef, found Bourdain unresponsive in his hotel room Friday morning.

“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” the network said in a statement Friday morning. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller.

“His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time.”

Bourdain joined CNN five years ago. In an email to employees, the network’s president, Jeff Zucker, remembered him as an “exceptional talent.”

“Tony will be greatly missed not only for his work but also for the passion with which he did it,” Zucker wrote.

Viewers around the world felt connected to Bourdain through his fearless travels, his restless spirit and his magical way with words. Fans, fellow chefs, celebrities and friends reacted to his death with stunned sorrow.

https://explorepartsunknown.com/remembering-bourdain/ 

Bouvier was born at Grand-Lancy near Geneva, the youngest of three children. He grew up in "a Huguenot milieu, rigorous and enlightened at the same time, intellectually very open, but where the entire emotional aspect of existence was strictly monitored." He passed his childhood in a house where, in his words, "the paper-cutter counted for more than the bread-knife", a double reference to his librarian father ("one of the most amiable beings I should ever have met") and his mother, "the most mediocre cook west of Suez". He grew up indifferent to gastronomy and a hardy traveller as well as an avid reader. Between the ages of six and seven, he devoured Jules Verne, Curwood, Stevenson, Jack London and Fenimore Cooper. "At eight years, I traced with my thumbnail the course of the Yukon in the butter of my toast. Already waiting for the world: to grow up and clear off."

From 1946, various escapades (Bourgogne, Tuscany, Provence, Flanders, the Sahara, Lapland, Anatolia) got him started on the path of the voyager. Nevertheless, he enrolled at the University of Geneva in the faculty of Letters and Law, indulged an interest in Sanskrit and medieval history, and thought about pursuing a doctorate (which he did not in the end take up) doing a comparative study of Manon Lescaut and Moll Flanders.

His travels all over the world incited him to recount his experiences and adventures, the most famous works being L'Usage du monde and Le Poisson-scorpion. His work is marked by a commitment to report what he sees and feels, shorn of any pretence of omniscience, leading often to an intimacy bordering on the mystical. His journey from Geneva to Japan was in many ways prescient of the great eastward wave of hippies that occurred in the sixties and seventies - slow, meandering progress in a small, iconic car, carefully guarded idiosyncrasy, a rite of passage. Yet, it differs in that the travelogues this journey inspired contain deep reflections on man's intimate nature, written in a style very much aware and appreciative of the traditions and possibilities of the language he uses. (He wrote mainly in French, though he does mention writing a series of travel articles in English for a local journal during his stay in Ceylon.)

"To reach the heart of this man, one must return to the slim volume that contains all his poems," wrote Bertial Galand, Bouvier's editor. The work in question is Le dehors et le dedans, a collection of texts written for the most part on the road and published for the first time in 1982. This is the only book of poetry by Bouvier, who nevertheless said in an interview, "Poetry is more necessary to me than prose because it is extremely direct, brutal - full-contact!"

At the end of the 1950s, the World Health Organization asked him to find images on the eye and its diseases. Thus Bouvier discovered, "through the chances of life", his profession of "image searcher," which perhaps appealed to him because "images, like music, speak a universal language," as suggested by Pierre Starobinski in his preface to Le Corps, miroir du Monde - voyage dans le musée imaginaire de Nicolas Bouvier. Another posthumous work, Entre errance et éternité, offers a poetic look at the mountains of the world. The iconographer commented on some of his finds in a series of articles for Le Temps stratégique, collected together as Histoires d'une image.

That Nicolas Bouvier lived in movement does not mean that he did not enjoy himself in Switzerland. Quite the contrary: he was involved in various activities, creating the progressive Gruppe Olten with Frisch and Dürrenmatt, after having left the Swiss Writers Society, which he found too conservative. In L'Echappée Belle, éloge de quelques pérégrins he celebrates a Switzerland "rarely spoken of: a Switzerland in movement, a nomadic Switzerland." The Swiss, sedentary? "You must be joking! In fact, the Swiss are the most nomadic people in Europe. Every sixth Swiss has chosen to live his life abroad." Reasonable? "It remains to be seen! Under the ordered surface, the varnish of the Helvetic 'as it should be,' I sense the passage of great strata of the irrational, a deaf fermentation, so present in the first thrillers of Dürrenmatt, in Fritz Zorn's Mars, a latent violence that, to me, renders this country bizarre and engaging." The traveller-writer, a close friend of Ella Maillart, thus sees in the history of his country "a constant of nomadism, of exile, of quest, of anxiety, a manner of not staying in place that have profoundly marked our mentality and, therefore, our literature. There has been, for two thousand years, a Switzerland, vagabond, pilgrim, often forced on to the road by poverty, and of which we speak all too rarely."

Bouvier received the Prix de la Critique (1982), the Prix des Belles Lettres (1986), and in 1995 the Grand Prix Ramuz for the entirety of his work. On February 17, 1998, suffering from cancer, Nicolas Bouvier died, in the words of his wife, "in complete serenity." A few months earlier, he had written these words: "Henceforth it is in another elsewhere / that reveals not its name / in other whispers and other plains / that you must / lighter than thistle / disappear in silence / returning thus to the winds of the road" (Le dehors et le dedans, "Morte saison'").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bouvier 

“I like the old farm story about the difference in being involved and being committed. When it comes to making breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the hog is committed. Just like that old hog, I am committed. But I’m committed to Kentucky.” -Joe Bowen
Joe Bowen has a passion for all that is Kentucky. From the time he was born in the town that bears his name, Bowen, Kentucky, he has worked to improve the lives of Kentuckians.
Joe, with his four brothers, grew up on a hillside farm in Powell County. Joe was an avid horseman and is still locally remembered for riding two stallions standing up with a foot on the back of each horse. He also rode his horse to remote “hollers” to cut the hair of the local kids, for free, to “keep them looking sharp.” He graduated from Powell County High School in 1962.
In 1967, fresh out of the Air Force and with $43 dollars in his pocket, Joe rode his bicycle from California home to Eastern Kentucky. Rather than taking the direct route, he decided to discover America. His 14,000-mile odyssey earned him many friends, much publicity, and the legacy as the first person recognized to extensively tour the United States by bicycle.
In 1980, Joe Bowen walked 3,000 miles across the United States on stilts to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy research. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, he holds the world record for the longest stilt-walk. He also stilt-walked in five European countries to raise money for philanthropic purposes.
In the course of his humanitarian activities, he met with six governors and many celebrities including Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon, Muhammad Ali, Joe DiMaggio, Elvis Presley, and many others.
However, don’t get the idea that biking and stilt walking are Joe’s only interests.
While in the Air Force, Joe twice gathered and delivered a military cargo plane full of presents and clothes to the Dessie Scott Children’s Home in Wolfe County, KY.
Joe envisioned, designed and raised the money to build a statue of legendary Eastern Kentucky horse trainer, Woody Stephens. With the help of Seth Hancock, a statue unveiling banquet was held in Woody’s honor that raised $80,000. This money was donated for Multiple Sclerosis research. The statue now stands at the Powell County Courthouse.
Joe was part of the Taylorsville Cemetery Restoration Project, a two-year effort to restore the cemetery and boost community pride.
Joe also bought, rescued and completely restored a gazebo originally built in 1898. He then moved it to where it now proudly stands as a landmark on the grounds of Spencer County High School.
Joe Bowen has researched and rediscovered the mystery of Felix Grundy Stidger, a spy for the Union Army, born in Taylorsville, who infiltrated the Confederate army. Stidger’s clandestine service was so significant and remarkable that Adjutant General Holt in his report to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton gave Stidger credit for winning the war. Joe is leading the effort to turn the house where Stidger was born into a historic site.
Joe Bowen is actively involved in the Eastern Kentucky Heritage Monument, which he describes as, “The single most important project for Appalachian Kentucky. Not only will it be a tremendous economic development project for the entire region, it will improve the image of all of Kentucky.” Joe was the first individual to contribute financially to the Eastern Kentucky Heritage Monument project which is co-sponsored by the Mountain Parkway Trails Corridor and the Appalachian Heritage Alliance.
Joe was the guiding force in building the statues to honor the memory and legacy of Governor Bert T. Combs. The first statue stands in Powell County just off the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway, the undisputed lifeline of Eastern Kentucky. The others stand in Prestonsburg and Manchester.
As Joe travels across the country on his bicycle-education tour, he will be promoting all of Kentucky. He will also be singing the praises of the newly designated Red River Gorge National Scenic Byway located in Powell, Menifee and Wolfe Counties.
He’s published a book, “Stiltwalk,” and has authored many magazine articles for sports, exercise and tourism publications. He has written four articles for the Kentucky Explorer Magazine.
For his commitment, Joe has won a multitude of awards. Twice, he has carried the Olympic torch. Twice he has been featured in “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” He’s won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Humanities Outstanding Service Award from the University of Louisville, and the Ambassador for Life award from the U.S. Jaycees. Also, he’s currently listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest walk on stilts.
Joe was the recipient of the first "Kentucky Unbridled Spirit Award." It was presented to him by Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher.
Joe is involved in the KY Rails To Trails Council. Currently, they are trying to turn thirty-six miles of the abandoned R. J. Corman Railroad in Breathitt, Magoffin and Johnson Counties into a hiking, biking and horse-riding trail.
After eight years of balancing a full time job with night and Saturday classes, Joe graduated from the University of Louisville in 1978.
His proudest accomplishment: his three daughters – Shawna, Lonna and Natalie Anne.
Not bad for a 63 year old construction worker from Bowen, Kentucky. A committed guy with an Unbridled Spirit for Kentucky.

http://www.appalachianheritagealliance.org/joe-bio.html