Guest of the ilb 2004
Frédéric Beigbeder was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine,
France, in 1965. While studying politics he became involved in the
organisation of parties in the Parisian night scene. After the
publication of his first novel »Memoires d’un jeune homme dérangé«
(1990; t: Memoirs of a Deranged Young Man), he embarked on a career in
advertising as a copywriter, and worked successfully with various
agencies for ten years. Simultaneously, he made a reputation for
himself through his literary reviews for a variety of magazines
including »Elle«, »Paris Match«, and »Voici« along with cultural
programmes on French TV. Feeling at home in the world of glamour and
scandal, the provocative writer soon became the controversial, as
well as the admired, enfant terrible of the French literary scene. In
1994, he founded the Prix de Flore for young authors (named after the
famous Café de Flore in St.-Germain-des-Prés), whose award winners
include Michel Houellebecq and Virginie Despentes.
Beigbeder’s work could be labelled ›autofiction‹. His alter ego Marc
Maronnier, the typical society hedonist of the 1990’s fun and party
generation, is portrayed in a narcissistic-ironic way in the trilogy of
»Memoires d’un jeune homme dérangé«, »Vaçances dans le coma« (1994; t:
Holidays in a Coma), and »L’amour dure trois ans« (1997; t: Love Lasts
Three Years). In his scandalous novel »99 francs« (2000; Eng. »£9.99«,
2002) Beigbeder casts a gaze over a society based on sham, brand names,
and superficialities, thus lampooning the advertising industry. The
›world power of advertising‹ that he warned of, consequently put an
abrupt end to his copywriting career. Since then he has supported the
activities of the anti-globalisation »Antipub«-movement, and
also devised the advertising for the 2002 election campaign of the
Communist Party candidate, Robert Hue. His most recent novel has again
given rise to international criticism and heated debate. With the title
referring to the name of the restaurant at the World Trade Center, the
119 brief chapters of »Windows on the World« (2003) report the last 119
minutes of a real estate agent who is having breakfast there with his
two sons on 9/11. In a parallel strand of the story, the narrator,
called Frédéric Beigbeder, is sitting in the topfloor restaurant of the
Tour Montparnasse in Paris. The time is one year later and he is musing
on the effects of the terrorist attack on the western world, on
Franco-American relations, and on his own life. In France, the book was
widely acclaimed and awarded the Prix Interallié in 2003. His novel „L´egoïste romantique“
(2005; t: The romantic egoist) is a polemical portray of the media
society and sensationalism in the form of an "anti-journal".
Frédéric Beigbeder lives in Paris and works as a writer, literary
critic and chief editor of the publishing house Flammarion.
© international literature festival berlin
Frédéric Beigbeder online: www.beigbeder.net | 
