David Foenkinos

Last updated

David Foenkinos
David Foenkinos salon radio france 2011.jpg
BornDavid Foenkinos
(1974-10-28) 28 October 1974 (age 49)
Paris, France
OccupationNovelist, Scenarist, Musician
NationalityFrench

David Foenkinos, born 28 October 1974 in Paris, is a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter and director who studied both literature and music in Paris.

Contents

His novel La délicatesse is a bestseller in France. [1] A film based on the book was released in December 2011, with Audrey Tautou as the main character. [2] His novels have appeared in over forty languages, [3] and in 2014 he was awarded the Prix Renaudot for his novel Charlotte. [4]

Biography

Early years

Growing up in a home with few books and often absent parents, David Foenkinos read and wrote little during his childhood. At 16, he required emergency surgery as a result of a rare pleural infection and spent several months recuperating in hospital, where he began to devour books, learning to paint and play the guitar. From this experience, he says, he kept a drive for life, a force that he wanted to convey through his books. [5]

Education and career

He studied literature at the Sorbonne and music in a jazz school, eventually becoming a guitar teacher. In the evenings, he was a waiter in a restaurant. After unsuccessfully trying to set up a music group, he turned his hand to writing. [6]

After a handful of failed manuscripts, he found his style, and his first novel Inversion de l'idiotie: de l'influence de deux Polonais (“Inversion of idiocy: influenced by two Poles”), though refused by many other publishers, was published by Gallimard in 2002; the book earned him the François-Mauriac literary prize, awarded by the Académie Française. [7]

David Foenkinos is the brother of director Stéphane Foenkinos.

Filmography

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prix Goncourt</span> French literary award

The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but results in considerable recognition and book sales for the winning author. Four other prizes are also awarded: prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle, prix Goncourt de la Poésie (poetry) and prix Goncourt de la Biographie (biography). Of the "big six" French literary awards, the Prix Goncourt is the best known and most prestigious. The other major literary prizes include the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, the Prix Femina, the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Interallié and the Prix Médicis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean d'Ormesson</span> French novelist (1925–2017)

ComteJean Bruno Wladimir François-de-Paule Lefèvre d'Ormesson was a French writer and novelist. He authored forty books, was the director of Le Figaro from 1974 to 1977, as well as the dean of the Académie Française, to which he was elected in 1973, until his death, in addition to his service as president of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies within UNESCO (1992–1997).

Gaétan Soucy was a Canadian novelist and professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prix Renaudot</span> French literary award

The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hélène Carrère d'Encausse</span> French historian (1929–2023)

Hélène Carrère d'Encausse was a French political historian who specialised in Russian history. From 1999 until her death in 2023, she served as the Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, to which she was first elected in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Marie Rouart</span> French novelist, essayist and journalist

Jean-Marie Rouart is a French novelist, essayist and journalist. He was elected to the Académie française on 18 December 1997.

Michel del Castillo born in 1933 in Madrid is a French writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis de Carné</span> French politician, journalist and historian

Louis-Marie de Carné, comte de Carné was a French politician, journalist and historian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Giudicelli</span> French novelist and literary critic (1942–2022)

Christian Giudicelli was a French novelist and literary critic. His seventh novel, Station balnéaire, was awarded the 1986 Prix Renaudot. Giudicelli was one of the eight jury members of the French literary award Prix Contrepoint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Zeniter</span> French writer

Alice Zeniter is a French novelist, translator, scriptwriter, dramatist and director.

Guy Dupré was a French writer and publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jérôme Garcin</span> French journalist and writer (born 1956)

Jérôme Garcin is a French journalist and writer. He heads the cultural section of the Nouvel Observateur, produces and hosts the radio programme Le Masque et la Plume on France Inter, and is a member of the reading committee of the Comédie-Française.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stéphane Hoffmann</span> French writer

Stéphane Hoffmann is a French writer.

André Brincourt was a French writer and journalist.

Bruno de Cessole is a French writer and literary critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Silve</span>

Philomène Marie Charlotte Gaudérique Félicité Ghislaine de Lévis-Mirepoix, Countess Jules de La Forest Divonne, better known by her pen name Claude Silve, was a French writer. She was a recipient of the Prix Femina, a French literary prize, in 1935 for her novel Bénédiction.

Roger Vrigny was a 20th-century French writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yves Berger</span> French writer (1931–2004)

Yves Berger was a French writer and editor. From 1960 to 2000, he was the literary director of Éditions Grasset, and published several novels in which he expressed his attachment to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Schneider (writer)</span> French writer

Marcel Schneider was a French writer, laureate of numerous literary awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud</span> French writer

Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud is a French novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the Prix Renaudot in 1982 for the novel La Faculté des songes and the Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle in 2005 for Singe savant tabassé par deux clowns. He has been general secretary of the Prix Renaudot since 2010.

References

  1. David Foenkinos. Book Around The Corner
  2. Libération.fr
  3. Frank Quilitzsch, Lesung aus ‘Zum Glück Pauline’ in Anwesenheit des Autors , Thüringische Landeszeitung, 13 September 2013. Accessed 15 July 2023.
  4. Raphaëlle Leyris (5 November 2014). "Prix Renaudot : David Foenkinos récompensé pour " Charlotte "" (in French). Le Monde.
  5. Julien Bisson, David Foenkinos: Un succès littéraire a toujours des conséquences un peu ridicules (“Literary success always has slightly ridiculous outcomes”), lexpress.fr, 1 April 2016. Accessed 15 July 2023.
  6. Astrid De Larmina, Le Renaudot à Foenkinos, la consécration d'un phénomène, lefigaro.fr, 5 November 2014. Accessed 15 July 2023.
  7. Prix de l’Académie, 2002: David Foenkinos, Académie Française, 2002. Accessed 15 July 2023.

David Foenkinos at IMDb