Jean Vautrin

Vautrin, Jean (pseud. of Jean Herman) (b. 1933). French film-maker (as Jean Herman), novelist (Billy-Ze-Kick, 1974; Bloody-Mary, 1979; Canicule, 1982; La Vie ripolin, 1986; and Un grand pas vers le Bon Dieu, 1989, Prix Goncourt), short-story writer (Baby Boom, 1985; 18 tentatives pour devenir un saint, 1989; and Courage, chacun, 1992), and joint-author with Dan Franck of detective stories (La Dame de Berlin, 1987), featuring the adventures of Boro (Blèmia Borowicz). Vautrin gives a violent and sinisterly funny presentation of the quirks and obsessions of marginal people, universalizing them by the art of the moraliste; in his own words, he is linguistically versatile to the point of schizophrenia.

[Peter Sharratt]