Emmanuel Carrère

Emmanuel Carrère (; born 9 December 1957) is a French author, screenwriter and film director.

Life Family Carrère was born into a wealthy family in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. His father, Louis Carrère d'Encausse, is a retired insurance executive and his mother, historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (born Hélène Zourabichvili, the daughter of Georgian émigrés), was a member and perpetual secretary of the Académie française and former member of the European Parliament. She was a cousin of Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili. Carrère has two sisters: Nathalie, a lawyer, and Marina, a doctor, TV presenter and novelist. He is the nephew of composer Nicolas Zourabichvili and cousin of philosopher François Zourabichvili.

Career

As an alternative to military service, Carrère taught French for two years in Surabaya in Indonesia. He then became a film critic for the magazines Télérama and Positif.

Carrère was on holiday in Sri Lanka when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. He was in his hotel and not in any personal danger but used the experience as the inspiration for his next book, D'autres vies que la mienne, published in 2009. Carrère was a member of the International jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, was a member of the jury for the Cinéfoundation and Short Films sections of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and served on the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, chaired by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2011, he published Limonov, a biographical novel about the Russian writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov.

The Kingdom, a novel about the rise of early Christianity, was published in 2014. The book provoked a scandal at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and the head of the English Department, who had included the book in the syllabus for an advanced seminar, was removed from his post. In 2016 Carrère published a collection of his journalism. An edition published in English in 2019 with the title 97,196 Words: Essays includes an article on Emmanuel Macron written in 2017 for The Guardian. In his 2020 book Yoga, Carrère writes about his experience of depression and four months spent in the Sainte-Anne Hospital in Paris, where he was diagnosed as bipolar and treated with ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy and lithium.

From September 2021 to June 2022 Carrère followed the trial of the November 2015 Paris attacks. His weekly articles were published in L'Obs in France, El País in Spain, la Repubblica in Italy and Le Temps in Switzerland. In September 2022 his articles, with additional material, were published in the form of a book with the title V13. (In France the trial is known as V13 as the attacks took place on Friday the 13th.) He was awarded the 2022 for the book.

Personal life Carrère has been married twice and has a daughter and two sons. His prose has been described as "spare and supple".

Awards 1984: Prix Passion 1985: Prix littéraire de la vocation 1987: Grand Prix de l'imaginaire – Prix spécial 1988: Prix Charles-Oulmont 1988: Prix Kléber-Haedens 1995: Prix Femina 2007: 2009: Prix Marie-Claire; prix Crésus 2010: from the Académie française 2011: Prix Renaudot; Prix de la langue française 2012: Premio Malaparte 2014: ; "Meilleur livre de l'année", awarded by Lire 2015: Mondello Prize 2016: Tomasi di Lampedusa Literary Prize 2017: Prix FIL de littérature en langues romanes. 2018: Prix de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) 2019: Premio Hemingway 2021: Princess of Asturias Award for Literature; Visions du Réel Honorary Award; Taobuk Award for Literary Excellence; Premio Napoli 2022: 2025: Prix Médicis