François Taillandier

Henri Vernes, creator of Bob Morane, fired a passion the 12-year-old Taillandier was not going to give up. In 1968 he began to read Honoré de Balzac. This classic French writer and Edmond Rostand, Cyrano's father, had a strong influence on him. Attending classical literature studies in the university, he graduated in 1977 with a memoir about the Marquis de Sade.

In 1979 he taught literature for 4 years before resigning from his position to become a full-time writer.

In 1984 he became journalist for the Revue Hebdo. Taillandier finds the inspiration walking in Paris, listening conversations while in the bistros. In 2006 he was appointed president of the Société des gens de lettres. Taillandier, divorcé, is the father of three.

In 1990 he published Les Clandestins, rewarded by the Prix Jean-Freustié. In 1992 the novel Les Nuits Racine received the Roger Nimier Prize. In 1999 Anielka is published and received the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.

In 2005 he published Option Paradis, the first novel in a series of a five-interlinked novels cycle, divided in fifty-five chapters (eleven chapters each novel) called La Grande Intrigue (The Big Plot), reviving a French classical literature tradition (La Comédie Humaine by Honoré de Balzac, Les Rougon-Macquart by Émile Zola). Following the evolution of five families through five generations, this work will be completed in 2010, celebrating the Taillandier's fifty-fifth anniversary. Telling, the second novel of this series was published in 2006.

He currently writes for French newspapers Le Figaro, l'Humanité[1] et la Montagne and keeps developing La Grande Intrigue, writing "only when everybody is sleeping".[2]

• Tout une part de la production romanesque contemporaine est rassurante. Ce sont des romans qui miment le roman. Ils trahissent une grande nostalgie pour le passé.[3]