Gavalda, Anna

Anna Gavalda grew up in the Paris middle-class suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. For as long as she can remember, she has dreamed of becoming an author. She grew up in a free-thinking artistic family where reading and cultural pursuits were important parts of everyday life. When her parents divorced, she was suddenly transferred to a Catholic school – despite not being baptized – and sent to board with relatives who had thirteen children of their own. When she studied at the Sorbonne to become a French teacher, she discovered that many of her fellow students wanted to write. She was working at the Monoprix department store at the time and had little time to think along those lines herself, but her other job, writing presentations for a dating agency, was a better writing school than any university can offer, she says. Gavalda is also keen to emphasize that she has learned a lot from her job as a translator of Harlequin novels.