Jean Echenoz

Orange, France (1947). He studied sociology and civil engineering in Rodez, Digne-les-Bains, Lyon, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille and Paris, the city in which he lives since 1970. He has published around twenty novels and has been awarded with several literary prizes, among others Médicis Award 1983 for Cherokee, Goncourt Award 1999 for Je m’en vais, as well as Aristeion Prize and François Mauriac Prize 2006 for his novel Ravel. His writing is defined as economic and descriptive, and also very inventive. He likes using neologisms with an special mark of humour and irony. Some of the books he has written are: Courir (2008), about the athlete Emil Zátopek, Des éclairs, about Nikola Tesla, 14, with the First World War as the backdrop of the novel and Envoyée spéciale (2015), developed in North Korea, in which, as usually, he observes accurately the day-to-day world.

Interview: Rosa de Diego

Rosa de Diego is Professor of French Literature at the University of the Basque Country. She has published several books and articles about authors, genres and works of Modern and Contemporary French Literature, as well as Quebec’s literature, mainly its theatre play. She has been the director of the encounters Arte y Cultura Bilbao Ciudad Universitaria.