Three Strong Women

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marie NDiaye was born in Pithiviers, France, in 1967 and spent her childhood with her French mother. Her father was Senegalese. Educated at primary and secondary level in France, NDiaye studied linguistics at the Sorbonne, and obtained a grant from the French Academy that enabled her to stay in the Villa Médicis in Rome. She started writing when she was about twelve or thirteen years old and was only eighteen when her first work was published. NDiaye was awarded the prestigious Femina literary prize for her novel Rosie Carpe in 2001 and the Goncourt Prize, France’s highest literary honor, in 2009 for Trois femmes puissantes. She lives in Berlin.