I was five when I arrived in France. Studied literature (a Masters and two years of a PhD in modern French literature), was a French and Latin teacher, did some odd jobs and then one day, with a wave of a magic wand, I became a journalist !
I write for a magazine (Paris Match, then Cosmopolitan). I write for magazines...My first ever words printed in black and white. A publisher notices me and asks me to write a novel. A novel ? Me ? Impossible !
The novel will be is “ Me First ”, in 1979. The sky falls on my head, success comes showering down. I head to New York. A change of city, a change of country. Travelling, living life, having a good time, getting to know a different world. Writing still seems as impossible as ever. But literature has kept a hold on me and “ The Barbarian ” comes out in 1981. Then, while still in New York, I write “ Call Me Scarlett” and “ Cruel Men Aren’t So Easy To Find”. " A cruel man is hard to find "
I’m quite taken by writing and by the lifestyle that goes with it. I’ve no choice any more. It’s the only thing I know how to do. Apart from having children. First a girl, then a boy. I get married, get divorced, I move in, I move out. All fairly ordinary, unfortunately!
I continue to write. Writing becomes my raison d’être. I discover that it is hard and that it is easy. I discover that time can go by so quickly or so slowly. That I feel like stopping or never stopping…
I discover another world. I travel inside my head and that’s fine…
I write books (“Seen From The Outside”, “ One Last Dance”, “ Such A Beautiful Image ”, “ I Was Here First ”, “ Rising Gently Through A Vast Love”, “A Faraway Man ”, “ Kiss Me ”). Screenplays. And articles. For Paris Match. I get to see the world, different people. I spend ten days in Manchester contemplating Cantona’s calf muscles and a week on death row in an American prison. I interview Reagan, Jospin, Chirac and Meryl Streep, Vanessa Paradis and Louise Brooks. I fill myself with my meetings and my travels. You always gain and learn from observing. I love learning. I love life, friendship, chance encounters, travelling, the unexpected; I open my arms out wide, even when I feel like closing them. Everything amazes me, I’m never indifferent… I make Paul-Emile Victor’s saying my own : “Living means waking up in the middle of the night with a sense of impatience about the coming day, it means marvelling at how the daily miracle can reproduce itself for us once more, it means being sleepless with joy.”
