Alain Defossé (11 February 1957 – 14 May 2017) was a French novelist and translator.

Early life

Alain Defossé was born on 11 February 1957 in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

. Early on, he was interested in music, jazz in particular, and also cinema, and he studied at the

Cours Florent The Cours Florent is a private drama school in Paris, France, established in 1967 by French theater actor François Florent. The school's facilities are located on three sites in the 19th arrondissement of Paris: Rue Archereau, Rue Mathis, and ...

in Paris.

Career

Defossé authored nine novels. His first novel, '' Les fourmis d'Anvers'', was published in 1991. He also translated several books from English into French. For example, he translated ''Crazy Cock'' by

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...

in 1990. He also translated ''

American Psycho ''American Psycho'' is a black comedy horror novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the First-person narrative, first-person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, and vain Manhattan investmen ...

'' by

Bret Easton Ellis Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American author and screenwriter. Ellis was one of the literary Brat Pack (literary), Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique as a writer is the expression of extreme acts ...

in 1993. In 2006, he translated ''

The Night Watch ''Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq'', also known as ''The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch'', but commonly referred to as ''The Night Watch'' (), is a 1642 painting ...

'' by

Sarah Waters Sarah Ann Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as '' Tipping the Velvet'' and '' Fingersmith''. Life and education Early life Sara ...

. Two years later, in 2008, he translated ''

Rant A diatribe (from the Greek ''διατριβή''), also known less formally as rant, is a lengthy oration, though often reduced to writing, made in criticism of someone or something, often employing humor, sarcasm, and appeals to emotion. Hist ...

'' by

Chuck Palahniuk Charles Michael Palahniuk (;, , born February 21, 1962) is an American novelist of Ukrainian and French ancestry who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He has published 19 novels, three nonfiction books, two graphic novels, and two ad ...

. Other novelists whose work he translated are

Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel ''Trainspotting (novel), Trainspotting'' was made into a Trainspotting (film), film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, ...

and Joseph Connolly. In his books ''L'Homme en habit'' he Man in Clothesand ''On ne tue pas les gens'' e Don't Kill People Defossé discusses his homosexuality, telling an interviewer in 2015: "my books are, generally speaking, made up of disparate elements that I have kept, consciously or not, in a secret drawer and which, at a certain moment, reappear and aggregate until they form a story and a book ... in my novels, there are also a lot of ghosts, which are certainly my ghosts, but which are also ghosts which belong only to themselves".

Death

Defossé died on 14 May 2017 in Paris.

Novels

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References

1957 births 2017 deaths Writers from Nantes Writers from Paris French male novelists 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists 20th-century French translators 21st-century French translators English–French translators 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers French male non-fiction writers {{France-translator-stub