Marie-Aude Murail
Marie-Aude Murail was born in Le Havre, France in 1954. She comes from a family of writers and with more than two millions volumes sold, numbers among the most beloved of contemporary children’s and young adults’ authors in her native country. She received a doctorate in new philology from the Sorbonne in Paris and began to write initially for adults before shifting to children’s and young adults’ literature in 1986. Her extensive work, which comprises more than 80 titles, ranges from illustrated children’s books and texts for very young readers to fantastical stories and loose teen series and books for young adults. Murail’s books have been translated into fourteen languages and included within the French school reading canon.
With wittiness and a great sense for the humour of a situation, the author spins her tales around unusual characters living under the most distressful of circumstances. Her often bittersweet tales about adolescents left on their own, highly intelligent children and egotistical adults are distinguished by their grotesque rise in complexity, which the author knows how to depict with spirit, humour and a distanced tone without putting into question the graveness of her characters. In the young adults book »Oh, boy!« (2000), the siblings Siméon, Morgane and Venise swear to never part ways after their mother’s suicide. Yet the authorities are strict, the grown up half-siblings incompetent, and destiny proves merciless when the oldest of them falls ill with leukemia. Murail writes refreshingly and without inhibition about human strengths and weaknesses, otherness and the perfidies of normality: »One can talk about life as it is, and thereby maintain hope. Nothing is irrevocably lost in life. But humour is also necessary. One can laugh and amuse oneself during the most difficult of moments. That is what I want to show children through this book.« For her young adults’ novel »Simple« (2006), the tragicomic story of two brothers, the author was awarded the Prix des Lycéens allemands in 2006: Simple, 22 years old, possesses the mental level and relentless honesty of a three-year-old. Together with his 17-year-old brother Colbert who took him away from the institution he was in, Simple moves into a shared student flat where he at first receives little sympathy due to his disposition towards chaos and his unmasking naiveté. The author impressively writes about courage and vanity, solidarity and love. »A book which through humorous means brings readers closer to a social taboo and at the same time emphasizes the relevance of the debate surrounding this subject«, concluded the jury of the Prix des Lycéens allemands.
Murail has been honored with countless prizes, among them, twice, the Prix Sorcières (1989 and 1990) as well as the Prix jeunesse France Télévision and the Prix Tam-Tam de Salon de livre de jeunesse de Montreuil. She has been a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur since 2004. Marie-Aude Murail lives in Orléans.
© international literature festival berlin
Continue la lecture, on n’aime pas la récré …
Calmann-Lévy
Paris, 1993
Jacques Pasquet
Office du Livre en Poitou-Charentes
Poitiers, 1993
Le trésor de mon père
Klett
Stuttgart, 1993
Chaos, Comics, Liebe
Arena
Würzburg, 1995
[Ill. Dupuy-Berbérian]
[Ü: Hans-Georg Noack]
Babysitter-Blues
Arena
Würzburg, 1997
[Ü: Hans-Georg Noack]
Jesus
Oncken
Wuppertal, 1998
La peur de ma vie
Bayard jeunesse
Paris, 2000
Tom Lorient
l’École des loisirs-Médium club
Paris, 2000
Tu t’es vu quand tu triches ?
La Martinière jeunesse
Paris, 2000
[Ill. Daniel Chevet]
D’amour et de sang
Édition Jeunesse
Paris, 2002
Golem 1. Magic Berber
[Mit Elvire und Lorris Murail]
Pocket junior
Paris, 2002
Mystère
Gallimard jeunesse
Paris, 2002
Auteur jeunesse
Sorbier
Paris, 2003
L’espionne
Bayard Jeunesse
Paris, 2003
[Ill: Jous Frédéric]
Les secrets véritables
Hatier
Paris, 2003
[Ill. Emmanuel Cerisier]
Von wegen, Elfen gibt es nicht
Fischer Schatzinsel
Frankfurt am Main, 2004
[Ü: Tobias Scheffel]
Charles Dickens
Ecole des Loisirs
Paris, 2005
Le hollandais sans peine
Ecole des Loisirs
Paris, 2006
[Ill: Michel Gay]
Halb und halb für drei
Fischer Schatzinsel
Frankfurt/Main, 2006
[Ü: Tobias Scheffel]
Vive la République!
Pocket jeunesse
Paris, 2006
La fille du docteur Baudoin
Ecole des Loisirs
Paris, 2006
Nonpareil
Ecole des Loisirs
Paris, 2007
Simpel
Fischer Schatzinsel
Frankfurt/Main, 2007
[Ü: Tobias Scheffel]
Noël à tous les étages
Bayard Jeunesse
Paris, 2007
22 !
Ecole des Loisirs
Paris, 2008
[Ill. Yvan Pommaux ]
Übersetzer: Hans-Georg Noack, Tobias Scheffel