I was born in Morocco, in Casablanca.
I grew up under the palm trees of Media.

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.”