Nicolas Mathieu

Nicolas Mathieu (; born 2 June

Biography, education, and early work

Mathieu was born on 2 June 1978 to parents who were respectively an electromechanical technician and an accountant. He spent his childhood in a tract housing development Educated in a private Catholic school, he knew he wanted to be a writer at the age of 14.

He subsequently went to work as a manager in the communications department at City Hall in Paris. He later spoke about this time of life as difficult for him. He experienced a "burn-out" that prompted his return to his native region and to settle in the city of Nancy. "The idea," he said, was to "work less to earn a living," and thereby have more time to write.

Writing career

Aux animaux la guerre (Of Fangs And Talons)

His first novel is Aux animaux la guerre (2014), a mystery and crime novel, published by Chez Actes Noirs, a division of Éditions Actes Sud. It was adapted to a 6-part France 3 television series in 2018. It was translated by Sam Taylor into English in 2021 as Of Fangs And Talons. The novel covers deindustrialization and moral decay and is said to follow in the literary traditions of writers such as Balzac and Émile Zola.

The novel won three distinctions: the Prix Erckmann-Chatrian in 2014, the Prix Mystère de la critique, and the Festival du goéland masqué in 2015.

Leurs enfants après eux (And Their Children After Them)

His second novel, Leurs enfants après eux (2018) is about a group of young people in the 1990s in a fictional rural northeastern French town, set in the valley of Lorraine,

It was translated by William Rodarmor for Other Press in the United States as And Their Children After Them on 7 April 2020.

The original novel won France's prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2018. In 2021, the translation earned Mathieu the Albertine Prize, an annual reader's choice award for French writing in translation.

President Emmanuel Macron mentioned the book's title in his New Year's Address for 2018, It is described as a "complex love story" between Hélène and Christophe, two forty-somethings, who hail from the same town in the Vosges region but reconnect after leading very different lives. Mathieu gave the work its title as a nod to the song "Les Lacs du Connemara" by Michel Sardou. Mathieu justified the choice by explaining that while the song is something we all share across the social spectrum, its meaning varies depending on certain distinctions of society and culture. The novel also explores the pressures of a career in management consulting, which is the field in which the leading female character, Hélène, works. Mathieu met with numerous consultants during the preparatory phase of writing the novel. The Times Literary Supplement described the novella as Mathieu’s first real foray into noir fiction. Although Mathieu had previously written about crime and used hardboiled elements, Rose Royal differed from his earlier works by centering a female protagonist directly involved in lethal crime. He said that the poster for the John Cassavetes film Gloria (1980) - depicting Gena Rowlands pointing a handgun at the onlooker - gave him the idea for a worn-out but beautiful woman named Rose, "who likes men and who likes a drink or two" and a plot "with a gun in her handbag..."

Le Ciel Ouvert In 2024, he published Le Ciel Ouvert, a collection of short stories and poetry. The work includes illustrations by Aline Zalco. Mathieu explained in interviews that he had begun writing the ideas that became this collection of prose in Facebook posts in 2008, continuing on Instagram from 2012, and that these writings were messages to "a woman who was not free," It was, in effect, an opening of the sky (the English translation of the title being 'the open sky') on something like a private diary. and in German translation as Jede Sekunde.

Le Seul Bonheur In April/May 2026, Nicolas Mathieu published Le Seul Bonheur, a children’s book about the trials of fatherhood. In it, he expresses the bewilderment, the love, and the unique happiness that this experience brought him, in other words: a paradoxical happiness born precisely of his sense of powerlessness as a father, his struggle to embrace the role, and the persistent feeling of never quite measuring up. It was within this vulnerability—almost in secret—that he discovered the highest form of happiness.

Other works In 2021, he was a resident writer of the Albertine Foundation in Oxford, MS after winning the Albertine Prize for And Their Children After Them. During that writer-residency, he wrote a feature story titled, "One Summer at the Circle" for publication in The Southwest Review. This assignment was strictly for the fortnight of the Roland Garros 2026 event. It was covered daily on the Eurosport France website and Instagram account. (See External links below.)

Political views and activities Generally, his social and political views are expressed on Instagram.

In 2023, the periodical Libération posted an article that called him (in French, though translated here) "public enemy number one of the Macron camp."

In 2022, he had expressed supportive remarks about the French politician Fabien Roussel, although he never officially endorsed him.

He supported the 2023 French pension reform strikes. He published an op-ed piece, addressing the government of French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly, titled, "Savez-vous quelle réserve de rage vous venez de libérer ?" (Do you realize what reservoir of rage you have just unleashed?) The piece was published in Mediapart on 18 March 2023.

That same year, when the French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin ordered the ban of sale to minors of the book Bien Trop Petit by Manu Causse. In response, Mathieu called for his Instagram followers to join him in posting the books they read as teenagers under the hashtag #WhenIWas15. The posts were subsequently compiled for a collection that included a contribution from Mathieu and then was published by . Actes Sud released an audiobook of the collection in 2023, narrated by Mathieu and the fourteen other contributors.

In May 2025, Mathieu joined a group of writers in writing an op-ed piece, denouncing the genocide of the population in Gaza and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Personal life In March 2024, an article in Paris Match suggested a romance between Nicolas Mathieu and Charlotte Casiraghi with further speculation appearing in Libération and elsewhere in the French media. It was generally said that the wide disparity of background between Mathieu and Casiraghi, a fellow writer but coincidentally the niece of the Albert II, Prince of Monaco, coupled with the author's tendency to be very vocal especially on Instagram about social class distinctions,

The author lives in Nancy. He has one son from a previous relationship, who was born in 2013 and to whom he dedicated his most renowned book, Leurs enfants après eux.

Awards and honours 2014 Prix Erckmann-Chatrian winner Aux animaux la guerre 2015 Prix Mystère de la critique winner Aux animaux la guerre 2015 prize for novel Aux animaux la guerre 2018 Prix Goncourt winner Leurs enfants après eux Portrait d'une femme en jaune dans Gilets jaunes, pour un nouvel horizon social, , 2019. Rose Royal. Éditions In8. 2019. . Rose Royal et La retraite du juge Wagner. Actes Sud. . 2021.

Other Poetry: "Jamais je ne t’avais vue plus simple dans," a poem printed in Schnaps! no.4, July 2019. Photographic Story: Les vies qu'on mène. Text by Nicolas Mathieu. Photographs by Jérôme Sessini and Tendance Floue. Le Bec en l'air, 2022, 256 p. . Autofiction & poetry: Le Ciel ouvert. Illustrated by Aline Zalko. Actes Sud. 2024. . Anonymous collection with contributions from Mathieu. Un texte sans titre en ouverture de #Wheniwas15, Éditions Thierry Magnier, collection Hors collection, 2023, 176 p. . History: Les sciences sociales face à l’automobile: Histoire, état des lieux et perspectives. An essay contributed by Mathieu. .

Children's books La Grande École. Illustrated by Pierre-Henry Gomont. . 2020. Le Secret des parents. Illustrated by Pierre-Henry Gomont. Actes Sud Junior. 2021. Papa. Illustrated by Stéphane Kiehl. Actes Sud. 2022. Le Seul Bonheur. Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. . 29 April 2026.

His works in translation . (Spanish edition of And Their Children After Them.) Translated by Amaya García Gallego. Alianza Editorial: 19 September 2019. . Of Fangs and Talons. (English edition of .) Translated by Sam Taylor. Sceptre. 2021. And Their Children After Them. Translated by William Rodarmor. Other Press. 2020. . (German edition of And Their Children After Them.) Translated by André Hansen. Piper Verlag: 1 April 2021. . Rose Royal: A Love Story. Translated by Sam Taylor. Other Press. 2022. . Connemara (Spanish edition.) Translated by Amaya García Gallego. Alianza Editorial: 6 October 2022. . Connemara. (English edition.) Translated by Sam Taylor. Other Press. 2024. "One Summer at the Circle". Translated by Alex Andriesse. Southwest Review. Vol. 109, no. 1. Spring 2024. . (Spanish edition of Le Ciel Ouvert.) Translated by Manuel Cuesta Aguirre. Editorial Grupo Anaya: 20 March 2025 . . (German edition of .) Translated by André Hansen and Lena Müller. Berlin: Hanser Verlag, May 2025. .

Prefaces by Nicolas Mathieu Deroudille, Clémentine. Louis de Funès. Éditions Flammarion, 2019. 192 p. . Berlioux, Salomé. Nos campagnes suspendues. , 2020. 206 p. .