Beyond Words French Literature Festival

Adriana Hunter

After obtaining a 1st in French & Drama at the University of London, Adriana Hunter worked as a film publicist and freelance writer before “discovering” the first book she was to translate. She has now translated 90 books including over 60 French novels. She won the 2011 Scott-Moncrieff Prize for her translation of Véronique Olmi’s Bord de Mer (Beside the Sea), and the 2013 French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize for Hervé Le Tellier’s Electrico W. She was shortlisted twice for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (now the Man Booker International Prize).

Faïza Guène

Faïza Guène is an award-winning French-Algerian writer and director. Scouted at a writing workshop at the age of eighteen, she made an astonishing literary debut with Kiffe kiffe demain, which was an international bestseller and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Her other novels in English include Dreams from the Endz, Bar Balto and Men Don’t Cry. She has directed several short films and is a co-writer on Disney Star’s mini-series Oussekine.

Louise Ferris

Louise Ferris is a PhD student at the University of Oxford. Her research explores the relationship between Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu and the breaking down of the distinction between the self and world in the works of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy and Catherine Malabou.

Clare Finburgh Delijani

Clare Finburgh Delijani is Professor in the Department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths University of London. She has written and edited many books and articles on theatre from the UK, France and the French-speaking world, including a special issue of Théâtre/Public on the Situationist International (2019), The Great Stage Directors: Littlewood, Planchon, Strehler (2018, with Peter Boenisch). She is currently writing a book on theatre in France that addresses the nation’s colonial past, and multicultural present.

Thomas Gerbeaux

Thomas Gerbeaux was born in Paris to a Breton family. A London resident for 10 years, he's the author of the prize-winning French trilogy Les Incroyables Histoires de l'Île aux Moutons with illustrator Pauline Kerleroux, a set of children's novels inspired by true events that are now being adapted into films.

Félicité Du Jeu

A graduate of LAMDA, Félicité du Jeu has worked extensively as an actress in both France and England. Known for her recurring part in the BBC Waking the dead, her career has ranged from playing Katherine in Henry V at the National Theatre (Ian Charleson special commendation) to acting in films such as Casino Royale and Munich. Recent projects include an HBO film My diner with Hervé and a recurring character in The Madame Blanc mysteries for Channel 5. She has also been translating and writing subtitles for a number of leading Theatres over the years. After an MA in playwriting/scripting, she wrote and produced her first play SPIKED at the Pleasance Theatre in 2018.

Marie Darrieussecq

Marie Darrieussecq is a Paris-based author and one of the leading voices of contemporary French literature. Her first novel, Pig Tales, was translated into thirty-five languages. She has written more than twenty books, including Tom Is Dead, Our Life in the Forest or The Baby and, most recently, Crossed Lines. In 2013, she was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix for her novel, Men. She also writes art criticism for a number of publications, including Libération and Charlie Hebdo, and translates from English to French.

Kamel Daoud

Kamel Daoud is an Algerian journalist based in Oran, where he writes for the third largest French-language Algerian newspaper, the Quotidien d’Oran. He writes a weekly column for Le Point, and his articles have appeared in Libération, Le Monde, Courrier International, and are regularly reprinted around the world. His novel The Meursault Investigation won the Prix Goncourt du premier roman in 2015.

Brian Clegg

Brian read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and has a Masters in Operational Research from Lancaster University. He worked at British Airways before setting up his own company. Brian now writes popular science books, with 40 titles published, including A Brief History of Infinity, Cracking Quantum Physics and What Do You Think You Are. He also writes for magazines and newspapers, has written 7 novels and has had a number of short stories published.

Tice Cin

Tice Cin is an interdisciplinary artist from north London. An alumna of Barbican Young Poets, she now creates digital art as part of Design Yourself – a collective based at the Barbican Centre – exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything. A producer and DJ, she is releasing an EP, Keeping the House, to accompany her debut novel of the same name. A London Writers Award-winner, her work has been published by the Royal Society of Literature and Granta and commissioned by places like Cartier and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Keeping the House has been named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2021, and has been featured in The Scotsman, The New York Times and The Washington Post.