Is Maud Prigent first and foremost a bookseller or Guyanese? Now that she’s weaving her magic in Kourou, the answer no longer matters. Born in metropolitan France and having emigrated to Guiana as a baby, she grew up with a mother who loved books. At the age of 10, her life was irrevocably marked by the discovery of My Sweet Orange Tree by Brazilian writer, Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos. She still remembers it as "A deeply sad novel about a broken childhood. It was a shock!" From that point on, she knew books would be her life. Having finished secondary school in Kourou, she went to study French language and literature in Paris but quickly changed course, enrolling in a polytechnic in Bordeaux where she discovered a passion for sales. She started out in the French city of Tarbes as the manager of a "rapidly growing" children’s literature department, then heard about a placement in Munich. There, she worked for an arts enthusiast without a head for figures before joining the Galeries Lafayette in Berlin to manage the book department. Despite deriving great pleasure from these experiences, she still missed Guiana. Then one day, a managerial role came up in a major bookstore in Cayenne where such positions were "very rare". It was time to say goodbye to Berlin! Nonetheless, she struggled for a while to integrate, taking on some teaching while she brushed up on logistics overseas and within Guiana’s press distribution services… i.e. keeping busy until the Encrages bookstore in Kourou snapped her up. In March 2006, she bought the store with two associates and initiated a plan for renewal and development. She hopes to relocate to a busier shopping area to generate interest among all members of the public - engineers, young Guyanese people, recent immigrants from South America – through various events and initiatives around different markets, with the aim of wiping out the store’s main competitor: the internet. The Lagardère Grant will give her welcomed assistance in doing just that.  

Age: 35 I Passions: Youth literature, Guiana, cooking I Philosophy in life: Discuss, share I Goals: Open my bookstore to the Guyanese population who do not have access to books I Favourite bookstores: Mollat (Bordeaux), Chantelivres and Fontaine (Paris).