Silène Edgar

Silène Edgar or George Silène, (born Sophie Ruhaud, ), is a French teacher, writer, and researcher.

Early life and education

Sophie Claire Marie Ruhaud-Trouffier was born on in Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine. Her parents are Bernard Ruhaud, a writer and Josiane Danièle Salgues. The poet Étienne Ruhaud is her brother.

She obtained her ''Baccalauréat Littéraire'' at the Jean-Dautet high school in La Rochelle, then continued her studies in literature in Poitiers. She obtained a master's degree in comparative literature at the Paris Cité University in 2000, and graduated in French as a second language, specializing in Language Awareness in 2011 at Le Mans University and in children's literature in 2015 at the University of Artois.

She is an ''agrégée'' in Humanities.

Career and research

Teaching

She taught French for 13 years, from 2004 to 2017, in a college in Saint-Nazaire. In 2017, she received the Palmes Académiques and stopped her teaching activity to devote herself full-time to writing.

Since June 2010, she became a freelance editor of educational materials for DYS adaptations (Dyslexia) and began writing fictions for publishing houses such as Casterman, Castelmore, Thierry Magnier, Gulf Stream, Hachette, and Gallimard.

Children's literature

Sophie Ruhaud wrote some twenty internationally acclaimed children's novels, notably in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland and Latvia.

Her breakthrough work is the post-apocalyptic ''Moana'' adventure trilogy published by Castelmore (inspired by her year in Tahiti), which won the 2011 CRILJ First Novel Award. Her novel ''8,848 mètres'', published by Casterman and edited by Vincent Villeminot in 2020, is inspired by the story of her cousin Marion Chaygneaud-Dupuy, who lived in Tibet for 20 years and climbed Mount Everest 3 times.

In 2014, she co-wrote the novel ''14-14'' with Paul Beorn, published by Castelmore, which parallels the stories of two boys a century apart.

They continue their collaboration with the novel ''Lune Rousse, Les Loups-garous de Thiercelieux'' in November 2018, around the universe of the eponymous board game by Philippe des Pallières and Hervé Marly. Then, in 2021, they will work together on the historical fantasy novel ''La Dame des murs'', published by Castelmore.

She also published three historical novels about various themes in French history: ''Adèle et les noces de la reine Margot'' (2015), ''Les Lettres volées'' (2016) and ''42 jours'' (2017).

In 2019, her novel ''Pour un sourire de Milad'' in collaboration with illustrator Annie Carbo addresses the issue of welcoming unaccompanied minors. She diversified her activity towards the youngest and first readings, with ''On a tué la petite souris'' illustrated by Noëmie Chevalier and ''L'arbre-lit'', her first album, illustrated by Gilles Freluche and published by ''La cabane bleue'' in 2020.

Adult literature

Silène Edgar published two novellas for an adult audience: ''Fortune Cookies'', a short story of anticipation on the state of emergency, and ''Féelure'', burlesque fantasy.

She also published ''Les Affamés'' (2019) at J'ai Lu (collection Nouveaux Millénaires), with a preface by Pierre Bordage, which describes a hygienist democraty with republican appearances, but hiding a regime prone to censorship and violence.

In 2019, she published an auto-fiction, ''Ce Caillou dans ma chaussure'', linked to her teenager novel ''Pour un sourire de Milad,'' on the theme of isolated minors.

In an interview in 2022, Silène Edgar announced her upcoming projects.

Other activities

She lives near Saint-Émilion.

Silène Edgar also worked with a circle of writers who were friends. In particular, she founded the website Callioprofs with a group of authors from her high school, she and Cindy van Wilder being the main columnists.

She trained in a variety of subjects, like the introduction to screenwriting at La Fémis (2017), cultural mediation, etc. From 2009 to 2013, she was a permanent volunteer at the Cocyclics association, a place of art and culture for authors of the imaginary created in 2007 where she managed the forum on a daily basis, organized and intervened in literary events in person and remotely. In 2017, she produced the documentary sequence ''Céleste'', ''ma planète'', a philosophical tale about ecology by Timothée de Fombelle.

She is also known for her research activity, initiated during her master's dissertations and which she resumed for the conference "Fantasy and History" of the fantasy festival ''Les Imaginales'' at Épinal, on the theme of Harry Potter and its link to witch hunts, social protest and anti-fascism. She also moderated the festival for several years with Élise Dattin. In 2019, she became educational coordinator and editor of the fantasy pedagogy site of the National Library of France (BnF).

As part of the ''Tandem de Nevers'' festival, she participated in a workshop with Maëlig Duval.

Works

Fiction

For youth

* 2010:
* 2011:
* 2013:
* 2014:
* 2014:
* 2015:
* 2016:
* 2017:
* 2018:
* 2019:
* 2021:
* 2021:
* 2021:
* 2022:

For adults

* 2012:
* 2014:
* 2014:
* 2015:
* 2018:
* 2019:
* 2019:
* 2019:
* 2021:

Youth album

* 2020:
* 2020:
* 2022:

Articles

* 2010:
* 2014:
* 2018: Prix du jury des Imaginales 2019
* 2019:

References

External links

Blog personnel "Au gré de mes humeurs"

Ancien site officiel

Interview

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edgar, Silène
21st-century French women educators
21st-century French educators
French female comics writers
French comics writers
French_fantasy_writers
Writers from Rennes
1978 births
Living people