Magnus

THE AUTHOR

Sylvie Germain was born in Chateauroux in Central France in 1954. She read philosophy at the Sorbonne, being awarded a doctorate. From 1987 until the summer of 1993 she taught philosophy at the French School in Prague. She now lives in Pau in the Pyrenees.

Sylvie Germain is the author of eleven works of fiction, ten of which have been published by Dedalus. Her works of non-fiction include a study of the painter Vermeer, a life of the 20th-century Dutch mystic Elly Hillesum, a portrait of Warsaw, and a religious meditation. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages and has received worldwide acclaim.

Sylvie Germain’s first novel The Book of Nights, was published to France in 1985. It has won five literary prizes as well as the TLS Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize in England. The novel’s story is continued in Night of Amber, which came out in 1987. Her third novel Days of Anger won the Prix Femina in 1989. It was followed by The Medusa Child in 1991 and The Weeping Woman on the Streets of Prague in 1992, the beginning of her Prague trilogy, continued with Infinite Possibilities in 1993 and then Invitation to a Journey (Eclats de sel). The Book of Tobias saw a return to rural France and la France profonde, followed in 2002 by The Song of False Lovers (Chanson des Mal-Aimants).

Magnus, published in 2005, has won several prizes in France including the Goncourt Lycéen Prize, which is selected from the 12 novels on the Goncourt shortlist by 15–18 year old students at French High Schools. It was also shortlisted for the Grand Prix du Roman de L’Académie Française.