Chloé Delaume (born Nathalie Dalain in 1973) is a French novelist, performer, musician, and occasional singer.

Biography

Born in Paris, Delaume spent her childhood in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. In 1983, at ten years old, she witnessed her father murder her mother, then kill himself. She then lived with her grandparents, her uncle and aunt. She is the niece of

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah Georges Ibrahim Abdallah ( ar, جورج إبراهيم عبدالله), born on 2 April 1951, is a Lebanese communist militant and the longest held prisoner in Europe. He is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Charles R. Ray and Y ...

. Delaume enrolled at the Université de Paris X to become a teacher, just like her mother did. Seemingly disappointed by the university's system, Delaume decided to write on her own while getting jobs as a waitress at hostess bars, which prompted her to write her first published novel for Farrago/Léo Scheer editions: ''Les Mouflettes d'Atropos''. She then collaborated under her birth name on the literary magazine Le matricule des anges. ''Chloé Delaume'' is her

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

: the name Chloé hails from the heroine of the novel '' L'Écume des jours'' by

Boris Vian Boris Vian (; 10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer who is primarily remembered for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sulliva ...

and her last name, Delaume, comes from

Antonin Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...

's writings/play ''L'Arve et l'Aume''.

Life and writing

Chloé Delaume has written various novels in which she uses an original form of poetic research. Apart from writing novels, she composes and collaborates lyrics to Julien Locquet's musical project Dorine Muraille. These collaborations have also spurred

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

performances. ''Le Cri du sablier'', won the

Prix Décembre The ''Prix Décembre'', originally known as the ''Prix Novembre'', is one of France's premier literary awards. It was founded under the name ''Prix Novembre'' in 1989 by Philippe Dennery (Michel Dennery, according to other sources). In 1998, the fou ...

in 2001.

Autofiction In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography. Autofiction combines two mutually inconsistent narrative forms, namely autobiography and fiction. An author may decide to recount their life in the third person, to mod ...

, technology,

biopower Biopower (or ''biopouvoir'' in French) is a term coined by French scholar, philosopher, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "an expl ...

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and pla ...

, literary activism and the struggle against

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

are some of the prevalent motifs throughout her body of work.

Works

* ''Les Mouflettes d'Atropos'', Éditions Farrago, 2000 * ''Mes Week-ends sont pires que les vôtres'', Éditions du Néant, 2001 * ''Le Cri du sablier'', Éditions farrago/Léo Scheer, 2001 * ''La Vanité des Somnambules'', Éditions Farrago/Léo Scheer, 2003 * ''Monologue pour épluchures d'Atrides'', Éditions du C.I.P.M., 2003 * ''Corpus Simsi'', Éditions Léo Scheer, 2003 * ''Certainement pas'', Éditions Verticales, 2004 * ''Les Juins ont tous la même peau'', Éditions La Chasse au Snark, 2005 * ''J'habite dans la télévision'', Éditions Verticales, 2006 * ''Neuf Leçons de littérature'', 2007 * ''Chanson de geste & Opinions'', Éditions Mac/Val, 2007 * ''La Dernière Fille avant la guerre'', Éditions Naïve Sessions, 2007 * ''La Nuit je suis

Buffy Summers Buffy Anne Summers is the title character of the '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' before going on to appear in The WB/UPN 1997–2003 television series and subsequent 1998 ...

'', Éditions èe, 2007 * ''Transhumances'', Éditions èe, 2007 * ''Dans ma maison sous terre'', Seuil (Fiction & cie collection), 2008 * ''Eden matin midi et soir'', Joca Seria, 2009 * ''Narcisse et ses aiguilles'', L'une et l'autre, 2009 * ''Au commencement était l'adverbe'', 2010 * ''La Règle du je'', PUF, 2010 * ''Sillages'', Cadex, 2010 * ''Le Deuil des deux syllabes'', L'une et l'autre, 2011 * ''Une femme avec personne dedans'', Seuil, 2012 * ''Perceptions, illustrations de François Alary'', éditions Joca Seria, 2012 * ''Où le sang nous appelle'', avec Daniel Schneidermann, Seuil, 2013 * ''Les Sorcières de la République'', Seuil, 2016 * ''Mes Bien Chères Sœurs'', Seuil, 2019

External links

Official Site

Interview (French)

Cerisy autofiction symposium speech (French)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delaume, Chloe 1973 births Living people Writers from Paris 21st-century French novelists Prix Décembre winners French women novelists French people of Lebanese descent Paris Nanterre University alumni Gamebook writers Prix Médicis winners 21st-century French women