Yann Apperry had a French father and an American mother. After two years of post-secondary studies in the United States, he returned to the University of Paris I to do a master’s degree in philosophy. Apperry tends to dismiss writers who see themselves as intellectuals or psychoanalysts. If you run across him in the street, you are sure to be struck by his boyish looks, and you may have the impression of meeting someone from another world. If he speaks to you, you can’t help listening, but Yann Apperry won’t tell you anything about himself; personal questions seem to represent a cruel intrusion on his privacy. “Personal memory is without interest. To be able to write, you need to free yourself of it. Even though everything one writes stems from biography, it must go beyond it.” The relationship to biographical writing clearly makes him uncomfortable: “If you write to find relief, that is a problem. You might as well write on toilet paper!” The book that won the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation grant, Paradoxe du Ciel Nocturne, was published in 1999 by Grasset. Certain critics found the novel difficult to read, but all agreed that Apperry has a true sense of style. Jorge Semprun (author of La Seconde Mort de Ramon Mercader, l’Art du Roman and others) wrote the following about Paradoxe du Ciel Nocturne: “Apperry has kept all his spirit, all his nerve… The writing is sumptuous, just as apt to express the most vague and fleeting intimate feelings as the smoothness or ruggedness of a landscape.” So how does Apperry see himself 10 years from now? He is finally forced to confide that he would someday like to be proficient in all writing styles – novels, plays, films, and even songs – for his friend, actor Redjep Mitrovista.

Achievements since winning the grant

1997-1998: artist-in-residence at the Villa Médicis in Rome.
1997: publication of Qui Vive by Editions de Minuit.
1999: publication of Paradoxe du Ciel Nocturne by Grasset.
2000: Médicis prize for Diabolus in Musica, published by Grasset.
2003: First performance of Les Hommes Sans Aveu, a play presented at Marseille’s Theatre du Gymnase and the National Theatre of Chaillot (published by Actes Sud, 2001).
2003: Farrago, a novel (Grasset).