Virginie Despentes is a writer and filmmaker. She worked in an independent record store in the early 1990s, was a sex worker, and published her first novel, Baise Moi, when she was twenty-three. She adapted the novel for the screen in 2000, codirecting with the porn star Coralie Trinh Thi. Upon release, it became the first film to be banned in France in twenty-eight years. Despentes is the author of more than fifteen other works, including the Vernon Subutex trilogy and King Kong Theory.
Frank Wynne has translated the work of many authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Boualem Sansal, Frédéric Beigbeder, and the late Ivoirian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma. He won the International Dublin Literary Award with Houellebecq for The Elementary Particles.
Virginie Despentes is a writer and filmmaker. She worked in an independent record store in the early ’90s, was a sex worker, and published her first novel,
Baise Moi, when she was twenty-three. She adapted the novel for the screen in 2000, codirecting with the porn star Coralie Trinh Thi. Upon release, it became the first film to be banned in France in twenty-eight years. Despentes is the author of more than fifteen other works, including the
Vernon Subutex Trilogy, Apocalypse Baby,
Bye Bye Blondie,
Pretty Things, and the essay collection
King Kong Theory.
Frank Wynne has translated the work of numerous French and Hispanic authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Javier Cercas, and Virginie Despentes. His work has earned him many prizes, including the Scott Moncrieff Prize, the Premio Valle Inclán, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with Houellebecq for
The Elementary Particles. Most recently, his translation of Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s
Animalia won the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize.
