Michel Nicolas

Born in 1974 in Aix-en-Provence, novelist and journalist NICOLAS MICHEL serves as editor-in-chief of the culture pages of Jeune Afrique, a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, where he opines on literature, history, and contemporary art. He is the author of three novels published with Gallimard’s Collection Blanche: Un Revenant (A Revenant, Goncourt Prize for a Début Novel, Prix Emmanuel Roblès, Prix littéraire de la Vocation), Le dernier voyage d’Emilie (Emilie’s Final Voyage, Prix Alexandre Vialatte), and La Bleue (The Blue Girl). With artist Emmanuel Lepage, Nicolas Michel produced two travel diaries for Casterman on Brazil and the Americas. In 2017, he published Quand le Monstre naîtra (When the Monster Is Born) with Talents Hauts, winning the Prix Saint-Exupéry that same year for a novel billed (though not exclusively) as YA. For Talents Hauts, he has also penned the novel Le chant noir des baleines (The Whales’ Dark Song, 2018). A fan of nature, illustration, photography, and fish, Nicolas Michel is a devoted free-diver.