Laurent Binet was born in Paris in 1972. He did military service in Slovakia and lived for a time in Prague. He lectures at the University of Paris III. His first novel, HHhH (Harvill Secker, 2012), won the Goncourt First Novel Prize, the Livre de Poche Readers’ Prize and Lire’s First Author Award; furthermore it was published in over 35 countries and made into a film. The 7th Function of Language (Random House, 2017) also won major awards, including the 2015 Interallié Prize, the FNAC Novel Prize and the L’Express Readers’ Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Rénaudot Prize, the Femina Prize, the Flore Prize and the Le Monde Literary Prize. With Civilizations (2019) he has once again triumphed with the critics, receiving the Académie Française Gran Prix.
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