Emmanuel Carrère

Life

Family

Carrère was born into a wealthy family in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. His father, Louis Carrère d'Encausse, is a retired insurance executive and his mother, historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (born Hélène Zourabichvili, the daughter of Georgian émigrés), was a member and perpetual secretary of the Académie française and former member of the European Parliament. She was a cousin of Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili. Carrère has two sisters: Nathalie, a lawyer, and Marina, a doctor, TV presenter and novelist. He is the nephew of composer Nicolas Zourabichvili and cousin of philosopher François Zourabichvili.

Studies

Carrère studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly and Sciences Po (the Paris Institute of Political Studies).

Career

As an alternative to military service, Carrère taught French for two years in Surabaya in Indonesia. He then became a film critic for the magazines Télérama and Positif. In 1982 his first book, a monograph on the film director Werner Herzog, was published. The following year saw the publication of his first novel L'amie du jaguar, in which he drew on his experiences in Indonesia. His second novel, Bravoure, based on the story of Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori and their stay at Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, was published in 1984. Both Carrère's first and second novels won literary prizes (the 1984 Prix Passion and 1985 Prix littéraire de la Vocation respectively), but it was his third novel, The Moustache, published in 1986, that introduced the author to a wider readership. Carrère later adapted the book for a film, which he also directed and which won the Label Europa Cinemas prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. An essay in which Carrère explores alternative history, Le détroit de Behring: introduction à l'uchronie, was also published in 1986. In 1988 Carrère published Hors d'atteinte, a novel about a woman who leaves her life to chance. His next work, published in 1993, was Je suis vivant et vous êtes morts, a fictionalised biography of the American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. This was followed by a novel, Class Trip, which won the 1995 Prix Femina and was adapted into a film by Claude Miller.

After the publication of Class Trip, Carrère turned his attention to the case of the murderer Jean-Claude Romand. He corresponded with him in jail and attended his trial. L'Adversaire, published in 2000, became a bestseller in France and was translated into 23 languages. It was adapted into the film of the same name by director Nicole Garcia. In 2007, Carrère published A Russian Novel about a visit to Russia and his Russian roots. In the book he revealed that his maternal grandfather had worked as a translator for the occupying German forces in World War II and had disappeared in 1944, presumably killed by members of the French Resistance.

Carrère was on holiday in Sri Lanka when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. He was in his hotel and not in any personal danger but used the experience as the inspiration for his next book, D'autres vies que la mienne, published in 2009. Carrère was a member of the International jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, was a member of the jury for the Cinéfoundation and Short Films sections of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and served on the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, chaired by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2011, he published Limonov, a biographical novel about the Russian writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov.

Personal life

Carrère has been married twice and has a daughter and two sons.

Style

Carrère's work ranges freely between genres and is concerned with the themes of identity, illusion and reality. His prose has been described as "spare and supple".

Awards

1984: Prix Passion

1985: Prix littéraire de la vocation

1987: Grand Prix de l'imaginaire – Prix spécial

1988: Prix Charles-Oulmont

1988: Prix Kléber-Haedens

1995: Prix Femina

2007: Prix Duménil

2009: Prix Marie-Claire; prix Crésus

2010: Grand prix de littérature Henri-Gal from the Académie française

2011: Prix Renaudot; Prix de la langue française

2012: Premio Malaparte

2014: Prix littéraire du Monde; "Meilleur livre de l'année", awarded by Lire

2015: Mondello Prize

2016: Tomasi di Lampedusa Literary Prize

2017: Prix FIL de littérature en langues romanes.

2018: Prix de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

2019: Premio Hemingway

2021: Princess of Asturias Award for Literature; Visions du Réel Honorary Award; Taobuk Award for Literary Excellence; Premio Napoli

2022: Prix Aujourd'hui

2025: Prix Médicis