Articles by Nicole Abadee

Technology

A top literary prize? Great. But his mum still wishes he worked at a bank

It was a success, and his career was launched. Two years later, he received a call from Berenice Fugard, the English head of acquisitions at Pathe Films, asking what he was working on. That led to Big Nothing, a black comedy starring David Schwimmer from Friends released in 2006 – and to marriage to Berenice, who now works as an artist at their home in Cannes. He became disillusioned with the movie world and decided to try writing a book. “One day, when I was out walking my dog, the idea came to me to write about a young man who runs away from home to prove he’s a man.” He wrote the entire book in three weeks, in a burst of creativity. “I felt like I had reconnected with my true self,” he says. “It gave me such joy. I remember thinking, ‘Don’t ever forget that joy’.” What follows is a story to bring joy to the heart of any aspiring writer. His manuscript, Ma Reine, was rejected by 14 publishers, before L’Iconoclaste, a boutique publishing house, released it in 2017. It won 12 literary prizes, including for best debut novel, and sold well. “I had finished 2016 with minus €5000 in the bank, and a mortgage. Suddenly, Ma Reine was translated into 15 languages and I had €50,000 from international sales alone.” [It has not been translated into English]. He wrote his next three novels in quick succession. “I was like a bottle of champagne,” he tells me. “The cork was out, and my creativity erupted.” He published A Hundred Million Years and a Day in 2019 and Devils and Saints in 2021, with both translated into English. But it is his fourth novel, Watching Over Her, published in France in 2023, that has launched him into the literary stratosphere. Set in Italy in the first half of the 20th century, it is a love story between Mimo, a poor fatherless Italian boy who grows up to become a famous sculptor, and Viola, the intelligent, high-spirited daughter of an aristocratic family who chafes against the restraints society imposes on her. The two meet at 13 and their (star-crossed) romance lasts a lifetime.