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 news magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. History and profile A sports news magazine, ''Match l'intran'' (a play on '' L'Intransigean ...

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

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

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 high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inc ...

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. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle f ...

, 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 – 26 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 popul ...

's death. In 2019, he published ''Civilizations'', an

alternative history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alter ...

novel about the conquest of Europe by

Atahualpa Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa ( Quechua), Atabalica, Atahuallpa, Atabalipa (c. 1502 – 26-29 July 1533) was the last Inca Emperor. After defeating his brother, Atahualpa became very briefly the last Sapa Inca (sovereign emperor) of the Inca Emp ...

. The novel was awarded the

Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française Le Grand Prix du Roman is a French literary award, created in 1914, and given each year by the Académie française. Along with the Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French litera ...

in 2019 and was published in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The English translation won the

Sidewise Award for Alternate History The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year. Overview The awards take their name from the 1934 short story " Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in ...

in 2022.

Works

Novels

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