Florence Gould Event

French Literature in the Making

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE RUFIN

Trained in medicine, essayist and novelist Jean-Christophe Rufin also studied at Sciences Po. During the 1970s, he traveled to Africa as a volunteer doctor and participated in his first humanitarian mission in Eritrea. As one of the co-founders of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) and current director of Action Against Hunger (Action contre la faim), he has led many missions in Africa and Latin America, which inspired two novels: The Abyssinian (L’Abyssin), winner in 1997 of the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and the Prix Méditerranée; and Brazil Red (Rouge Brésil), winner of the 2001 Prix Goncourt. Another novel, Lost Causes (Les causes perdues) was awarded the 1999 Prix Interallié. Globalia, in 2004, deals with a potential totalitarian world of the future in novelistic form.

Jean-Christophe Rufin is also a political essayist. His works include L’Aventure humanitaire (1994), which looks at human rights activism, and La Dictature libérale. He is the author of a major report for the French government on racism and anti-semitism in France. He was elected to the Académie Française in 2008. In 2007, he was named Ambassador of France to Senegal and served until earlier this year.

in conversation with
OLIVIER BARROT
Writer, journalist, Un Livre un jour (France 3)
In French.

Presented with the additional support of Sofitel, Open Skies, CulturesFrance, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy