Author Nominee: France

Marie Desplechin
France, Author

Born in Roubaix in northern France in 1959, Marie Desplechin now lives in Paris. She studied arts and journalism at university and dreamed of being a writer. On completing her studies, she worked freelance for a communications firm, and continues to work as a journalist with various magazines and newspapers, including Elle and Le Monde.

Her first children's book, Le sac à dos d'Alphonse, was published in 1993, and since then she has produced at least one children's book each year. Her writing, spanning humour and fantasy, has met with critical success and is translated into many languages. In particular, Verte (Poor Little Witch Girl) has been widely acclaimed. While it employs the relatively sophisticated device of telling the story from different points of view, Desplechin's use of short chapters and a simple approach makes it very accessible for relatively young readers. It was said that her 'heroic fantasy', Le monde de Joseph [Joseph's world], marked a departure for Desplechin with its utopian theme. It is an account of a boy whose desire to live alone in a wood, away from his village, brings him to a new maturity.

Marie Desplechin has published many works for adults, including novels and short stories, which have met with great success. But she mostly writes for young readers. In her works, she uses a step-by-step approach in the belief that it is possible to interest children in just about any subject. She is said to prefer writing for children as there is simply too much at stake in writing for adults, because critics are always waiting to pounce on writers. Yet, she never hesitates to deal with serious subjects such as the existence of God, family crises and relations between adults and children.