Irène Frain grew up in Lorient, a Breton port founded in the 17th century for trade with India and China. Agrégée in literature at the age of 22, she taught in secondary schools and at the Sorbonne before turning to literature. Her first novel, Le Nabab (The Mogul), about a Breton sailor who becomes a mogul in India, was a huge success. Since then, she has published some forty books that have won literary prizes, and public interest in her free spirit, her taste for far-flung places and the quality of her writing has never waned. Passionate about maritime adventures, she has devoted two major novels to them, Les Naufragés de l'île Tromelin (2009) and L'allégresse de la Femme Solitaire (2022). Alongside her biographies, in which she has explored unknown aspects of the lives of great women in the field and in archive collections (Marie Curie prend un amant, Beauvoir in love, Je te suivrai en Sibérie). She also explored her family's secrets in several autobiographical texts, including ‘Sorti de rien’ and ‘La fille à histoires’, until the unexplained murder of her older sister led her to investigate the indifference of the police and the justice system in ‘Un crime sans importance’, which won the prestigious Prix Interallié in 2020. After leading Le Figaro's famous writing workshops, she recounted her experience of literary creation and its transmission in Ecrire est un roman (2023).

Language spoken: French

Photo credit: Bénédicte Roscot