Claudel, Philippe 1962-

PERSONAL: Born 1962. Education: Attended college.

CAREER: Author. Previously worked as a teacher of handicapped children, at the prison of Nancy, France, and at the University of Nancy.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prix Renaudot, 2005, for Les  mes grises.

WRITINGS

Meuse l’oubli, Éditions Balland (France), 1999.

Le café d’excelsior, Éditions la Dragonne (Nancy, France), 1999.

Barrio Flores: petite chronique des oubliés, photographs by Jean-Michel Marchetti, Dragonne (Nancy, France), 2000.

Quelques uns des cent regrets (title means “Sum of the Hundred Regrets”), Éditions Balland (France), 2000.

J’abandonne (title means “I Give Up”), Éditions Originale Balland (France), 2000.

Au revoir Monsieur Friant (essay), Éditions Phileas Fogg (France), 2001.

Le bruit des trousseaux, 2001.

Sur le bout des doigts (screenplay), 2002.

Nos si proches orient, Éditions National Géographique (France), 2002.

Les âmes grises, Éditions Stock (France), 2003, translated by Adriana Hunter as Grey Souls, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2005, translated by Hoyt Rogers as By a Slow River, Knopf (New York, NY) 2006.

Trois petites histoires de jouets (title means “Three Small Stories of Toys”), Éditions Virgile (France), 2003.

Les petites mécaniques: nouvelles, Mercure de France (Paris, France), 2003.

Les petite fille de monsieur Linh (novel; title means “Mr. Linh’s Little Girl”), Mercure de France (Paris, France), 2005.

Les Âmes grises (screenplay), 2005.

Also author of Mirbaela, Éditions Aencrages. Contributor to Vu de la lune: nouvelles optimists, Gallimard (Paris, France), 2005.

ADAPTATIONS: Grey Souls was adapted for film, Epithete Films, c. 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Philippe Claudel is a French writer who became a novelist after working for a time as a teacher. His novel Les âmes grises was published in England as Grey Souls and in the United States as By a Slow River. The narrator of this story tells the of a young girl whose body is found in a river during World War I. She has been strangled, and before long a man is arrested and then executed for the crime. The narrator, a retired French policeman, is reinvestigating the crime some twenty years later and once again looks into the lives of those involved, from lawyers and judges to a schoolteacher who has hung herself. “The mystery that propels this story is not the question of who strangled a little girl, but the deeper, universal mystery of human existence,” reflected a Kirkus Reviews contributor. “Psychologically complex, elegantly written and tightly plotted, this is far from your average policier,” observed a Publishers Weekly writer. Terrence Rafferty commented in the New York Times:“This is a book that hits the ground brooding.” Rafferty added: “The narrator’s flowing style. . . lulls and reassures, swaddles the reader in Gallic worldliness.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2006, Brad Hooper, review of By a Slow River, p. 38.

Entertainment Weekly, June 16, 2006, Jennifer Reese, review of By a Slow River, p. 81.

Financial Times, July 23, 2005, review of Grey Souls, p. 33.

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, December, 2006, review of By a Slow River, p. 57.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2006, review of By a Slow River, p. 480.

New York Times, July 2, 2006, Terrence Rafferty, review of By a Slow River.

Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2006, review of By a Slow River, p. 33.

ONLINE

Calou, http://perso.orange.fr/calounet/ (December 21, 2006), brief biography of Philippe Claudel.

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (December 21, 2006), information on Philippe Claudel’s film work.

London Telegraph Web site, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (May 29, 2005), review of Grey Souls.