Isabelle Spaak (born 5 October 1960) is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

writer living in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. The daughter of

Fernand Spaak Fernand Paul Jules Spaak (8 August 1923 – 18 July 1981) was a Belgian lawyer and diplomat. Life The son of Paul-Henri Spaak and Marguerite Malevez, he was born in Forest and was educated at Cambridge University and at the Université libre ...

and Anna-Maria Farina, she was born in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and grew up there. In July 1981, her mother killed her father and then committed suicide. Spaak moved to France later that year, attending

Paris West University Nanterre La Défense Paris Nanterre University (French: ''Université Paris Nanterre''), formerly Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Paris, France. It is one of the most prestigious French universities, ma ...

. She went on to work as a journalist for '' VSD''; later, she was put in charge of the culture pages of '. She is perhaps best known for two autobiographical novels ''Ça ne se fait pas'' (2004), which received the

Prix Victor-Rossel The Prix Victor-Rossel is a literary award in Belgium that was first awarded in 1938. The award was created by three people associated with the newspaper ''Le Soir'': the owner Marie-Thérèse Rossel, the manager Lucien Fuss and the editor-in-chief, ...

, and ''Pas du tout mon genre'' (2006). In 2011, she published ''Militants'', a non-fiction work on the French Socialist party. Spaak published a third novel ''Une allure folle'', based on the lives of her mother and grandmother, in 2016.

Publications

* ''Paris'', 1999 * ''Ça ne se fait pas : roman'', 2004 * ''Pas du tout mon genre : roman'', 2006 * ''Militants'', 2011 * ''Une allure folle : roman'', 2016 * ''Une mère, etc.'', 2019

References

1960 births Living people Belgian journalists Belgian women novelists Artists from Brussels Belgian expatriates in France Writers from Paris 21st-century Belgian novelists Belgian non-fiction writers 21st-century Belgian women writers Belgian women journalists {{Belgium-writer-stub