Yves Grevet was born in Paris in 1961 and grew up in Vitry-sur-Seine. As a youth he had already begun writing sketches and plays. After completing a teaching degree in Melun he spent two years in Ankara before working as a teacher in a Parisian suburb. Grevet submitted his manuscripts
Yvon Le Men was born in 1953. He began writing poetry as a young man. Since the publication of his first book, »Vie« in 1974, he has devoted himself professionally to the written and spoken word. Rooted in Brittany and its culture, he is the author of a large number
Yasmina Khadra was born Mohammed Moulessehoul in Kenadsa, in the Algerian Sahara, in 1955. Like his father, an officer in the Algerian army, he was also meant to become a member of the military and was sent to a cadet training school. He wrote his first volume of short stories,
Yasmina Reza was born to a Jewish-Iranian family in Paris in 1959. Reza’s mother was a violinist and music played an important role for the family. After studying drama at the University of Paris–Nanterre and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Reza went on to act on stage across
Véronique Tadjo was born in Paris in 1955. She grew up in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, her father’s homeland. She studied Literature at the University of Abidjan and completed her doctorate in Afro-American Literature and Culture at the Sorbonne. In 1983 she attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., on a Fulbright
The playwright, theatre theoretician and painter Valère Novarina was born in Chêne-Bougeries near Geneva, Switzerland, in 1947. The son of the architect Maurice Novarina and the actress Manon Trolliet spent his childhood and youth in Thonon-les-Bains in the region of Haute-Savoie, before he moved to Paris to study Philosophy and
Valérie Dayre was born in France in 1958. In 1989 she published her first book, entitled »Miranda s’en va« (t: Miranda goes away). Since then she has written over fifteen highly-acclaimed children’s novels and picture books, which have been translated into German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. In her challenging stories,
Valérie Zenatti was born in Nice in 1970 and, at the age of thirteen, moved with her family to Israel, where they settled in Beersheba in the Negev desert. When she was eighteen she did the military service which is required of young men and women alike and shortly afterwards
Tzvetan Todorov was born in Sofia in 1939. At the age of twenty-four, he left Bulgaria and went to Paris, where he obtained his doctorate in 1970. He published his authoritative work on fantasy literature in the same year. The »Introduction à la littérature fantastique« (1972; Eng. »The Fantastic: A
Timothée de Fombelle, born in Paris in 1973, discovered early in life that he had a passion both for writing and theatre. At the age of seventeen he founded the theatre group »La Troupe des Bords de Scène«, for which he wrote and directed. After completing his studies in literature
Tara June Winch was born in Wollongong, Australia, in 1983. Her father is a member of the Wiradjuri nation in New South Wales. In 2004 she was awarded the David Unaipon Award for indigenous writers for a then unpublished version of her first novel »Swallow the Air« (2006). The novel
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in the Moroccan city of Fes in 1944. He went to the French grammar school in Tangier, and studied philosophy in Rabat. Initially a teacher, he then went on to join the circle of intellectuals and artists around »Souffles«, and its founder Abdellatif Laâbi in
