Laurent Binet (born 19 July 1972) is a French writer and university lecturer. His work focuses on the modern political scene in France.

Biography

The son of a historian, Valérie Trierweiler, October 18, 2010
"Laurent Binet, retour sur un succès"
''

Paris Match ''Paris Match'' () is a French-language weekly gossip magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. ''Paris Match'' has been considered "one of the world's best outlets for photojournalism". ...

'' Laurent Binet was born in Paris. He graduated from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

with a degree in Literature. He spent four years singing and playing guitar with a rock band named Stalingrad. He teaches French in a Paris suburb and also at the University of Saint-Denis. Binet was awarded the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman for his first novel, '' HHhH''. The novel recounts the assassination of Nazi leader

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

in 1942. In August 2012, Binet published ''Rien ne se passe comme prévu'' (Nothing goes as planned), a behind-the-scenes account of the successful presidential campaign of

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. Before his presidency, he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (France), First Secretary of th ...

, which Binet witnessed while embedded with Hollande's campaign staff. In 2015, he published his second novel, ''La septième fonction du langage'', which was translated in 2017 as ''The Seventh Function of Language'', a detective thriller dealing with a fictionalized account of

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...

's death. In 2019, he published '' Civilizations'', an alternative history novel about the conquest of Europe by

Atahualpa Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa or Ataw Wallpa ( Quechua) ( 150226 July 1533), was the last effective Inca emperor, reigning from April 1532 until his capture and execution in July of the following year, as part of the Spanish conquest of the In ...

. The novel was awarded the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 2019 and was published in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The English translation won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2022.

Works

Novels

* '' HHhH'' (2010), Grasset, * ''The Seventh Function of Language'' (''La Septième Fonction du langage'') (2015), Grasset, * '' Civilizations'' (2019), Grasset, * ''Perspective(s)'' (2023), Grasset,

Short stories

* "Forces et faiblesses de nos muqueuses" (2000), Le Manuscrit,

Non-fiction

* ''La Vie professionnelle de Laurent B.'' (2004), Little Big Man, autobiography, * ''Rien ne se passe comme prévu'' (2012), Grasset, politics, * ''Dictionnaire amoureux du tennis'' (2020), with Antoine Benneteau, guide,

Collective works

* ''Qu'est-ce que la gauche?'' (2017), Fayard,

Adaptations

* '' The Man with the Iron Heart'' (2017), film directed by Cédric Jimenez, based on novel '' HHhH''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Binet, Laurent 1972 births Living people 21st-century French male writers 21st-century French novelists French male novelists Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman recipients Prix Interallié winners Sidewise Award winners University of Paris alumni Writers from Paris Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française winners French lecturers