Frederic Beigbeder
Frédéric Beigbeder (born September 21 1965) is a French writer, commentator critic and pundit.
He was born into a privileged family in Neuilly-on-Seine. His mother, Christine de Chasteigner is a translator of mawkish novels (Barbara Cartland et al), his father, Jean-Michel Beigbeder, is a headhunter. He studied at the Lycée Montaigne and Louis le Grand, and later at Sciences-Po, from which he graduated in 1984 and at the age of 25 began his work as a modern renaissance man: advertising executive, author, broadcaster, publisher and dilettante.
In 1994, he founded the "Prix de Flor" (which takes its name from the famous café in Saint-Germain-des-Prés destroyed in a bomb-blast in Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama). The prize is awarded annually to a promising young French author. Vincent Ravalec, Jacques A. Bertrand, Michel Houellebecq are among those who have won the prize.
He works as a publisher at Flammarion. He is divorced and has a 4 year old daughter, Chloé.
His has written several, broadly autobiographical novels including
- 99 francs (translated into English as £9.99)
- L'Amour dure trois ans
- Mémoires d'un jeune homme dérangé
- Nouvelles sous ecstasy
- L'égoïste romantique
- Windows on the World (translated under the same title by Frank Wynne)