Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut – 2014
Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut was born in Hue, Viet-Nam, in 1962. Her family moved to the US in 1968, then three years later moved to France. After finishing high school in France, she went back to the US to attend university. Thanh-Van earned a BA in Math and Physics from Whitman College and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
She worked several years in France before starting to write, with her sister Kim, the story of a detective, Mandarin Tan, set in 17th century Viet-Nam. They wrote two novels together before Tanh-Van kept the series going on her own. It proved successful and several of the books have been translated into Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and German.
Thanh-Van’s Randell project ‘Kawekaweau’ (Au Vent des Iles, 2017) is the story of a scientist who receives a package and a challenge from a former girlfriend: his task? to unravel the engima of the kawekaweau, the giant gecko of Maori myth.
Further reading
- Read Thanh-Van’s essay: Two Seasons and Countless Treasures, Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut
Estelle Nollet was born in 1978 in the Central African Republic and moved to France a few years later. Following her studies as a graphic artist in Paris, she worked in advertising in France and elsewhere, before taking up a second career as a diver and working as an instructor in a number of countries (Australia, the US, New Zealand, Mexico…). She says diving into the world of silence is like discovering a book in movement where there’s a new story happening mutely every second.
Florence Cadier was born in 1956 and is a journalist by profession. In 1995, inspired by her two children Bastien and Valentine, she began to write children’s stories and young adult novels. Many of her books have been translated including Qui est Laurette? (Who is Laurette?), Les miens aussi (Mine too), Ils divorcent (They are getting divorced), 24 histories pour attendre Noël (24 stories for the lead-up to Christmas) and Dessine avec Mila (Drawing with Mila). She was awarded a number of prizes, including the town of Poitiers’ historic novel award and the Literary Al Terre Ado prize, for Le rêve de Sam (Sam’s Dream). Her most recent novel is L’été des amours (Summer of loves), published in March 2011 by Oslo.
Yann Apperry is a bilingual French-American who writes in both languages and translates his own texts with elegance and finesse. He is an accomplished novelist, playwright, poet and librettist. In France, he is considered one of the most talented writers of the young generation. Born in 1972, Yann published his first novel Qui Vive at the age of 25 and was immediately acclaimed by critics and awarded the “Prix Bretagne.
Fariba Hachtroudi is a French writer and Iranian exile born in Tehran in 1951, and the daughter of the eminent mathematician and champion of democracy Moschen Hachtroudi. She studied art and archaeology in France, moving there when she was a teenager. Despite the distance from her homeland, the Islamic revolution in Iran left her feeling bewildered. In 1981, she decided to move to Sri Lanka where she taught at Colombo University.
Olivier Bleys was born in Lyon in 1970. He holds masters’ degrees in modern literature, computer graphics and cultural project management. Author of historical novels as well as essays and travel stories, Olivier won the young novelist’s prize for The Island at the age of twenty-two. Three years later his second book, The Prince of the Fork, received a national prize. His third novel, Pastel, was translated into several foreign languages and rewarded by the French Academy.
Nicolas Kurtovitch was born in Noumea in 1955. His mother’s side of the family first settled in New Caledonia in 1843. He also has Yugoslavian origins, through his father, who left Sarajevo in 1945. After completing his schooling in New Caledonia, Nicolas travelled to New Zealand and Australia, eager to experience and absorb the diversity of the South Pacific. He then completed further study in France (Aix-en-Provence, 1977-1980), obtaining a degree in Geography before returning to New Caledonia where he took up a teaching position at Lifou.
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