Stéphane Amar is a journalist. He has lived in Jerusalem since 2003, and is the Middle Eastern correspondent for Arte, BFM TV and RTS, for whom he has reported on hundreds of subjects in the region. In 2008, his book about Israeli-Palestinian coexistence (Les meilleurs ennemis du monde (The Best Enemies in the World) was published by Denoël. His latest book, Le Grand Secret d’Israël (Israel’s Big Secret),  about the stalled peace process, was brought out in May, 2018, by Editions de l’Observatoire.

Jean Baret was born in Marseille on March 6, 1971. After having been a law clerk for 4 years, he went on to obtain a J.D.S., and is now a lawyer. Jean Baret has no driver’s license and doesn’t smoke or do drugs, but he does do a lot of bodybuilding. He has put on 22 kilos of muscle these past few years. Jean Baret can’t stand the sight of blood. Jean Baret spends a lot of time thinking about the divine marketplace. Jean Baret knows perfectly well that God doesn’t exist, and that fact makes him nauseous. His latest novel, Bonheur TM (Happiness TM), came out in September, 2018, at Editions Le Bélial.

Élie Barnavi is a historian, a writer, and an emeritus professor of Modern Western History at Tel Aviv University.

From 2000 to 2002, he served as Israel’s ambassador to France.

Elie Barnavi has chaired or co-chaired advisory boards for a large number of museum exhibits, and has been on the advisory board of the Museum of Europe in Brussels since 1998, as well as being on the board of directors of Tempora, a Belgian company specialized in producing museum exhibits.

Élie Barnavi has had some two dozen books published, about sixteenth-century France and Europe or about the contemporary history of Israeli and of the Jewish people, as well as articles in professional journals in Europe, the USA and Canada, and political analyses for the generalist press, both in Israel and abroad (France, Belgium, Spain, Italy).

Among his most recent books:

• • Les religions meurtrières (Murderous Religions), Flammarion

• • La Révolution européenne, 1945-2007, Perrin (with Kzrysztof Pomian)

• • L’Europe frigide. Réflexions sur un projet inachevé (Frigid Europe, Reflections on an Unfinished Project), André Versaille Publisher
• • Aujourd’hui, ou peut-être jamais. Pour une paix américaine au Proche-Orien (Now or Maybe Never: For US-Brokered Peace in the Middle East), André Versaille Publisher
• • Dieu(x), modes d’emploi (God(s): How-to Guides), André Versaille Publisher
• • Dix thèses sur la guerre (Ten Theories about War), Flammarion

Élie Barnavi has won several literary prizes, including the Académie française’s Grand prix de la Francophonie,” awarded in 2007 for the body of his work; the Aujourd’hui Prize for Les religions meurtrières and the Montaigne Prize pour L’Europe frigide.

Elie Barnavi is on several advisory or orientation boards. In France, he presided the 2009 international symposium commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the creation of the Ministry of Culture.

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Emma Becker was born in 1988 in the Hauts de Seine, just outside Paris. Having majored in literature in high school, she studied psychology at Paris University V, before deciding to devote herself entirely to her writing. Her first published work, an erotic short story, appeared in the journal Stupre in 2008. Her book Mr. (Denoël, 2011), an immediate critical and commercial success, has been translated into 14 languages; it was followed by Alice (Denoël, 2015). Emma Becker now lives in Berlin. She just finished her latest novel, La Maison (The House), which will be coming out internationally in 2019 (at Flammarion in France; Rowohlt in Germany).

 Madi Belem was born in Morocco in 1990, in Rabat. His father, Driss Belemih, a writer, was a famous professor of Arabic linguistics, specialist in pre-Islamic poetry, novelist and publisher. He’s the one who gave him the taste for art, cinema and writing. After attending the dramatic classes of Cours Florent, Madi Belem performed in his first movie, Le Convoi, by Frédéric Schoendoerffer and in the Baron Noir series for Canal +. In 2018 during the Agadir film festival, he won the first prize for male interpretation.

La Langue maudite is his first novel, to be launched by Plon publishers in 2020.

Cécile Desmoulins

After a first experience in Mauritania, Cécile Desmoulins spent almost 10 years on a series of child-protection humanitarian missions for UNICEF, essentially in the African Great Lakes region after the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and later in the Balkans (Kosovo).

Cécile Desmoulins (born in 1968), then moved to London, where for four years she studied acupuncture, a skill that requires inner strength, centering, self-mastery, humility, and never-ending learning.  The diametric opposite of frantic action in a war zone, it embodies serenity in a zone of peace.

Cécile Desmoulins now lives in Grenoble, where she is studying social economy to benefit the least privileged. Her first novel will be published by Robert Laffont in 2019.

Jean-Philippe Domecq has written two novel series, Les Ruses de la vie (Life’s Ruses) and La Vis et le Sablier (The Screw and the Hourglass) published by Métaphysique Fiction. In the non-fiction department, he is the the author, most notably, of Robespierre, derniers temps (Robespierre: the End Time) (1984 Book Prize, new Folio-Histoire edition, Gallimard); Comédie de la Critique (Critical Comedy) about contemporary art (new edition in 2015) and (Qui a peur de la littérature?(“Who’s Afraid of Literature, new edition in 2002), about how literature is received. To date, he has had thirty books published: www.leblogdedomecq.blogspot.com

Dany-Robert Dufour, a French philosopher born in 1947, is a retired professor who gave conferences, wrote academic articles and had both a novel and dozens of works of non-fiction published (by Gallimard, Denoël, Calmann-Lévy, and Les Liens qui Libèrent). He is particularly interested in the way impulses, which inspire individuals to act, are turned into discourse and precipitated by certain types of power, including totalitarian ones. In other words, his work is situated at the intersection of four major human economies: the psychological, discursive, commercial and political.

In his most recent work, he goes so far as to use the term “insanity” to describe the current type of neo-liberal power, since it implements an “always-want-more” mentality, which, by exploiting both human beings and nature to the utmost, exposes humanity to the risk of losing everything. And that kind of insanity generates others, including religious, identity-based and others.

Dany-Robert Dufour’s most notable books include: Les Mystères de la trinité (Gallimard, 1990), Le Divin Marché (The Divine Marketplace, Folio Essai, 2012), La Cité perverse (Perverse Society, Folio Essai, 2012), Le Délire occidental (Western Madness, Agora Pocket, 2018) and, under the pen name Demosthenes, Le Code Jupiter, philosophie de la ruse et de la démesure (The Jupiter Code: A Philosophy of Ruse and Immoderation) Équateurs, 2018).

Fabrice Gaignault is a writer and reporter (editor in chief Culture and Celebrities for Marie-Claire, columnist for Lire and Transfuge). He wrote several books including a novel, L’Eau Noire, and a Dictionnaire de littérature à l’usage des snobs (Dictionnary of literature for snobish people), which was translated in several languages. He is also the author of two travel writings (Ethiopie Itinérance and Gandhi Express), a portraits compilation (La chasse à l’âme), and a collection of four books that depict the ups and downs of pop heroes (Egéries Sixties, Aspen Terminus, Vies et mort de Vince Taylor, Bobby Beausoleil et autres anges cruels). Egerie Sixties is currently being adapted for a Canal Plus series.

Copyright Laura Stevens

Isaac Getz studied Engineering, has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and a “habilitation” degree in Management. He is a professor at ESCP Europe School of Business, and has been a visiting professor at Cornell, Stanford and the University of Massachusetts.

He has been a keynote speaker at conferences around the world on subjects ranging from organizational transformation, liberated companies, staff initiatives and involvement, free-form leadership and innovation for growth, and given private seminars at hundreds of firms around the globe.

Freedom, Inc., the book he wrote with Brian Carney about liberating leadership, has been translated in 13 countries. In France, it is called Liberté & Cie, and was published by Fayard (new edition Flammarion, 2016). It is one of the best-selling management books in France in recent years.

Mark Greene, a Franco-American writer born in Madrid, has written a collection of short stories Les Plaisirs difficiles (Difficult Pleasures, Le Seuil, 2009); four novels, including Le Ciel antérieur (An Earlier Sky, Le Seuil, 2013) and45 tours (45 RPM Rivages, 2016); and a biographical narrative, Comment construire une cathédrale (How to Build a Cathedral, Plein Jour, 2016 – 2017 Marianne Prize). His most recent novel, Federica Ber (Grasset, 2018), was long-listed for the 2018 Renaudot Prize and short-listed for the Wepler Prize.

Yannick Haenel was born in 1967. He founded the literary journal Ligne de risque, which he has co-run since 1997. Most of his published work is novels, in Editions Gallimard’s L’Infini collection. They include Tiens ferme ta couronne (Hold on Tight to Your Crown, 2017 Médicis Prize), Les Renards pâles (The Pale Foxes, 2013), Jan Karski (2009, Interallié Prize) and Cercle (Circle, 2007 December Prize).

He has also directed a film, La Reine de Némi (The Queen of Némi, 30′, 2017) produced by the National Studio of Fresnoy.

Marco Koskas was born in Tunisia, raised in France, and now lives in Israel.

His work has been critically acclaimed from the start: Balace Bounel won the 1979 First Novel Prize. A former fellow of the Villa Médicis, the French Academy in Rome, he has written over a dozen books, including biographies of Dr. Schweitzer and Yasser Arafat (both published by J-C. Lattès).

His latest novel, Bande de Français (French Gang), made headlines in late 2018. Turned down by every French publisher it was sent to, and finally self-published on Amazon, the novel was still long-listed for the Renaudot Prize. Not only was that groundbreaking event discussed in the French press, but from The Guardian and Die Welt to Haaretz and Libre Belgique, media across Europe weighed in on the debate.

As soon as it was published, the rights to Bande de Français were snapped up for a film adaptation.

Hadrien Laroche, born in Paris, has lived and worked in Tel Aviv, Vancouver, Dublin and Paris. He writes both fiction and non-, and his work has often been translated into English: Les Orphelins (Allia, “J’ai Lu,” 2005; Orphans, Dalkey Archive Press, 2015), Les Hérétiques (Flammarion, 2007), La Restitution (id, 2009), Qui va là ! (Rivages, 2015); Le Dernier Genet (Seuil, Fiction & Cie, Champs-Flammarion, 2010; The Last Genet, A Writer in Revolt, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), Duchamp Déchets : les hommes, les objets, la catastrophe (Ed. du Regard, 2016; “Marcel Duchamp: The Signature Machine,” in Breathless Days (ed. S. Guilbaut, J. O’Brian, Duke University Press, 2017).

Born in Paris in 1984, Arthur Larrue taught French literature at Saint Petersburg University for four years, until the publication of his novel Partir en Guerre (Off to War, Éditions Allia, 2013; Wojna, Wagenbach, 2014) cost him both his job and his visa. Contemporary Russia haunts his work, from the short story Kolossoff, about the pianist Grigori Sokolov (Feuilleton, 2013) to his translation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose (Le Nez, Éditions Allia, 2014). His latest novel, Orlov, la nuit (Orlov at Night), is coming out at Editions Gallimard in 2019.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1968, Rouja Lazarova’s first short stories were published in the 80s. She studied French literature at Sofia University, then political science at Paris X University in Nanterre, and at “Sciences Po.” She then started writing in French, and her first novel was published in 1998. Le Muscle du Silence, Editions Intervalles, 2016 Mausolée, Flammarion 2009 Frein (Brake), Editions Balland, 2004 Cœurs Croisés (Crossed Hearts), Flammarion, 2000 Sur le bout de la langue (On the Tip of My Tongue), Editions 00h00.com, 1998.

As a child, Corinne Maier used to dream of being invisible so that she could go everywhere. As childhood dreams always come true, or at least some of them, she sneaks around different places and environments. These experiences feed her pamphlets, satires, pastiches and novels. She is the author, inter alia, of Bonjour, Paresse and No Kid, both worldwide bestsellers.

Corinne Maier, whose work has been translated in numerous languages, is a Sciences Po alumni, holder of a degree in both history and economics. She also defended a psychoanalysis thesis. Furthermore, she is a comic book screenwritrer.

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copyright Ewa Rudling

Jean-Baptiste Naudet has been an international reporter for the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur since 2000. His beat includes eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Africa. He spent ten years in the foreign news department at the newspaper Le Monde as a correspondent in Rumania, the former Yugoslavia, and Russia. From the civil war in Mozambique in the 1990s to the latest intervention in Afghanistan, via two wars in Chechnya, he has covered nearly a dozen conflicts. His first novel, La Blessure (The Wound), was recently brought out by L’Iconoclaste.

Pierre Pachet

Estate (1937-2016) A writer, critic, and academic, Pierre Pachet wrote nearly two dozen books. His diverse and iconoclastic body of work includes literary essays and autobiographical texts. As the author Emmanuel Carrère has put it, all of them are exercises in intranquillity and vigilance.

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Johanne Rigoulot is a scriptwriter and a novelist.

Her books include Et à la fin tout le monde meurt (And in the End, Everybody Dies, (Flammarion, 2007) winner of Marie-Claire magazine’s First Novel Prize; and Bâti pour durer (Built to Last, Fayard, 2012). Her latest book, Un Dimanche matin (A Sunday Morning, will be published by Editions des Equateurs in 2019.

Isabelle Sarfati is a plastic surgeon. Histoires plastiques (Plastic Stories, Stock, 2018), her first book, is currently being adapted as a TV series.

Nano Shabtaï is an Israeli poet and writer. Her first novel, Le Livre des Hommes (The Book of Men), short-listed for the Sapir Prize, will be published by Editions Actes-Sud.

Piotr Smolar, 44, has been Le Monde’s foreign correspondent in Jerusalem since mid-2014. He reports on news from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Before that, he covered the post-Soviet region from 2007 to 2014, focusing particularly on Ukraine. From 2002 to 2007, Piotr Smolar reported on security and terrorism issues in France. Winner of the French Journalism Center’s International Investigation Prize and the 2009 Louis Hachette Prize, he is the author of a collection of reports from Russia, called Gloubinka, Promenades au coeur de la Russie (Gloubinka: Strolls through the Heart of Russia, L’Inventaire, 2002).

Thomas Snégaroff holds an advanced degree in history and is specialized in contemporary American politics and society. He teaches at prep schools and at “Sciences Po” Paris. His book about the bodies of American presidents (L’Amérique dans la peau. Quand le président fait corps avec la nation (America Under their Skin: When the President Becomes One with the Nation, Armand Colin, 2012), was adapted as a documentary for Arte. He continued his work on the American presidency with two biographies: one about John F. Kennedy (Armand Colin, 2013); the other about the Clintons (Tallandier, 2014). He has also written a historical analysis of the Star Wars saga, published as Je suis ton père. Star Wars, l’Amérique et ses démons (I Am Your Father: Star Wars, America and Its Demons, Naïve, 2015). Most recently, in 2018, his book Little Rock, 1957 (Tallandier) describes the arrival of nine black students at the city’s hitherto all-white high school.

Thomas Snégaroff also presents a daily radio program, “Histoires d’Info,” on France Info. In partnership with the INA (National Audiovisual Institute), the program gives a historical perspective on the news of the day. On Sundays, he appears on France 5 TV’s “C Politique” program, which deciphers the news through the prism of the history of ideas. He is also regularly invited to comment on news from the United States for France 5 TV’s program “C dans l’Air.” His new book, Putzi, le pianiste de Hitler, will be published by Editions Jean-Claude Lattès.

Isabelle Sobelman is an author and scriptwriter.

Isabelle Sobelman’s books include Jalouse (Editions POL) and Vivante (Alive, Editions Léo Scheer), as well as treatises about art: En attendant Beckett (Waiting for Beckett, Editions Marval); Des têtes (Heads, Editions de la Différence); Louis Cane, catalogue raisonné, sculptures, Vol. II, Editions de la Différence; Portrait d’une collection, Editions de la Différence; L’expérience Raffray co-published by the Art and History Museum of Saint Brieuc and the Rouen Fine Arts Museum; Entretien avec Stéphane Pencréa’ch (Interview with  S.P., Editions de la Différence); Denise Klossowski le 16 octobre 2002, Editions de la Différence; Philippe Berry, Sculpteur, a book of interviews, Editions de la Différence, À bruit secret (Secret Noise), about Samuel Beckett, Editions du Centre Georges Pompidou; L’ami déclaré (The Declared Friend), about Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, Editions du Musée d’Art Moderne.

As a scriptwriter, she has written, most notably, Olivier Dahan’s La Môme (La Vie en Rose) and has worked with the filmmakers Michael Radford, Pan Nalin, Mona Achache, and Alphan Eseli.

Since 2017, she has been a member of “Grand trouble,” an artistic movement launched by Frédéric Pajak. In that context, she has written and worked with Alain Frentzel.

Succession: Emil Szittya (Budapest 1886 – Paris 1964) lived a truly bohemian life: he moved to Paris in 1906, then from 1914 to 1918 he lived in Zurich, where he socialized first with Lenin and Radek, then the Dadaists at the Cabaret Voltaire. He was friends with everyone from the avant-garde movement, which he wrote a book about: Das Kuriositäten-Kabinette. He was the co-editor of Der Mistral, a pre-Dadaist journal. His life was not unlike that of another marginal revolutionary: Franz Jung. Having first met Blaise Cendrars in Leipzig, the two reconnected in Paris in 1910 or ‘11. Emil Szittya published the first few issues of his journal, Neue Menschen. As he was in dire financial straits, Blaise, Emil and Marius Hanot decided to launch a French version of Neue Menschen, Les Hommes nouveaux, a free-thinking, anarchist Franco-German journal.

Emil Szittya was a veritable meteor in European literature. He was also a very talented painter. A true apostle of the avant-garde, he gave the poet Lajos Kassák his start, and was surely the first to recognize the genius of both Chagall and Soutine.

In 1963, shortly before he passed away, his book 82 rêves pendant la guerre 1939-1945 (82 Dreams During the 1939-1945 War, an extraordinary comparative analysis of the unconscious during wartime, was published. A new edition is coming out in 2019 at Editions Allary.

Bruno Tertrais is the Deputy Director of the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS). A specialist in geopolitics and strategy, his most recent books include: La Revanche de l’Histoire: comment le passé change le monde (History’s revenge: How the Past Changes the World, Odile Jacob, 2017), L’Atlas des frontières: murs, conflits, migrations (The Atlas of Borders: Walls, Conflicts, Migrations, Les Arènes, 2016, with Delphine Papin), Le Président et la Bombe: Jupiter à l’Elysée, Odile Jacob, 2016, with Jean Guisnel). In 2010, he was awarded the Vauban Prize for the body of his work as a whole. He received the 2013 Impertinence and Good News Grand Prize for an essay called “Un monde de catastrophes ? Mythes et réalités du progress.” He won the 2016 Brienne Prize for the year’s best book about geopolitics. And in 2017, he received the Geographic Society’s Georges Erhard Prize.

After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, Marina de Van was admitted to the Fémis film school, where she studied directing. She began making films in 1997. Since then, she has made a great number of shorts, and three feature films. In 2010, she started writing novels. Three of them have been published by Editions Allia (Passer la nuit (Spend the Night, 2011), Stéréoscopie, 2013, and Rose minuit (Midnight Rose, 2016)). Her fourth novel, Betty, la nuit (Betty by Night) came out in March 2018 at Editions Albin Michel.

 David ZAOUI was born in the suburbs of Paris in 1977. He worked as both a film producer and director for several years, mostly in the United States. He then spent four years studying theatre at Paris’s Cours Florent, where he was introduced to stage directing. Winner of the Chambéry First Novel Festival Prize, he now devotes his time to writing. His new novel is coming out in 2019 at Editions Jean-Claude Lattès.