Mathieu Terence scribbled down his first works at the age of 11 or 12, a time when he constantly sought refuge in reading to forget the cruelty of the surrounding world. “Writing is the process of giving form to the deep-seated sadness within me, so that it doesn’t devour me,” he affirms today. His early works include poems written for a girl who never read them, an essay on the melancholy induced by luxury hotels, Palace Forever (published in 1996), as well as his diary, which he has kept since the age of 14. One finds elements from these early works in his first novel, Fiasco, published by Phebus in 1997, the story of a man incapable of making a success of his life but who does his best to make a brilliant mess of it. Barely a year after receiving the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation grant, which gave him a lot more freedom (“An invaluable gift”, he confesses), Mathieu Terence had already put the finishing touches on Journal d’un Cœur Sec. The story is as follows: 10 years after the suicide of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton, his mentor and torturer, resumes the diary that he had given up. “Even though one takes notes under the dictation of one’s defeats, it is still vanity that corrects the punctuation.” Terence’s idea was to imagine what would have become of this mentor: “His cynicism undoubtedly conceals some flaws.” Applauded by the critics, this “sequel” to Oscar Wilde’s novel was published by Phebus in September 1999.  “We are off to the races with one aphorism after another. Mathieu Terence is annoyingly intelligent, cultured and controlled,” wrote Daniel Picouly in Le Journal du Dimanche.

Achievements since winning the grant

In 2002, Les Filles de l’Ombre, published by Phebus, was awarded the Académie Française novella prize, and his novel Le Journal d’un Cœur Sec, published by Phebus, received the François Mauriac prize. In 2004, Aux Dimensions du Monde, a collection of poems, was published by Léo Scheer. The same year, the novel Maître Chien was published by Phebus.

Coming in 2007: his latest work, Technosmose, to be published by Gallimard.