Michael Ferrier


Michaël Ferrier is a French writer, novelist and essayist, living in Tokyo.

Biography

Ferrier was born in Strasbourg. He comes from a French family and also from Mauritian Creole people and Réunion Creole people, with Indian, French, Malagasy and British origins. After a nomadic childhood, he gained entrance to the highly selective École Normale Supérieure, at the age of 18, where he passed the agrégation in literature and graduated from the University of Paris. He is currently Professor at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan, and director of the Research Group Figures de l'Etranger.

Works

Ferrier has published several novels and essays, whose interdisciplinary work includes several books on Japan, which has become a standard reference in the field.
His first novel, Tokyo, petits portraits de l’aube, Gallimard, 2004, has been awarded the Prix Littéraire de l’Asie 2005.
His novel Sympathie pour le Fantôme portrays multiple voices and embraces the contradictions and complexity of French national identity. It has been awarded the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée.
His book about Fukushima is a major study of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear accident, that has roused the interest of writers and philosophers like Philippe Sollers and Jean-Luc Nancy. Universities have held conferences on his work, and Ferrier is the recipient of numerous literary awards and honors, among them the 2012 Prix Edouard Glissant and one of France's premier literary awards, the 2018 Prix Décembre.

Awards and honours

Michaël Ferrier was shortlisted three times for the Prix Femina.

Works

;Novels translated in EnglishScrabble : une enfance tchadienne, Mercure de France, Collection Traits et Portraits, 2019 = Scrabble, A Chadian Childhood, translated by Martin Munro, Liverpool University Press, 2022Mémoires d'Outre-Mer, Gallimard, 2015 = Over Seas of Memory, translated by Martin Munro, foreword by Patrick Chamoiseau, University of Nebraska Press, 2019François, portrait d'un absent, Gallimard, 2018 = François, Portrait of an Absent Friend, translated by Martin Munro, Fum d'Estampa Press, 2023
;Novels Tokyo, petits portraits de l’aube, Éditions Gallimard, 2004Kizu, Ed. Arléa, 2004Sympathie pour le Fantôme, Gallimard, 2010Fukushima, récit d'un désastre, Gallimard, 2012François, portrait d'un absent, Gallimard, 2018Ce qui nous arrive , with Michaël Ferrier, Camille Ammoun, Ersi Sotiropoulou, Fawzi Zebian and Makenzy Orcel, with a preface by Charif Majdalani, Editions Inculte, 2022
;EssaysLouis-Ferdinand Céline et la chanson, Ed. du Lerot, 2004La Tentation de la France, la Tentation du Japon, Picquier, 2003Le Goût de Tokyo, anthology, Mercure de France, 2008Japon: la Barrière des rencontres, Ed. Cécile Defaut, 2009Penser avec Fukushima, Nantes, Editions nouvelles Cécile Defaut, 2016Naufrage, Gallimard, Collection Tracts, 2020Dans l'oeil du désastre : créer avec Fukushima, sous la direction de Michaël Ferrier, éd. Thierry Marchaisse, 2021, with Makoto Aida, Takashi Arai, Chim↑Pom, Marie Drouet, Hikaru Fujii, Thierry Girard, Yoi Kawakubo, Jacques Kraemer, Hélène Lucien, Bruno Meyssat, Chihiro Minato, Yoann Moreau, Brigitte Mounier, Kôhei Nawa, Shinji Ohmaki, Marc Pallain, Claude-Julie Parisot, Gil Rabier, Noi Sawaragi, Nobuhiro Suwa, Kota Takeuchi, Kenichi Watanabe, Yukinori Yanagi.Notre ami l'atome, Paris, Gallimard, 2021
;Screenplay - Movies
The three films written by Michaël Ferrier and directed by Kenichi Watanabe were published by Éditions Gallimard in 2021:Notre ami l'atome, Paris, Gallimard, 2021.
;Texts in English
  • « Creole Japan; or, the Vagaries of Creolization », Small Axe, vol 14, number 3 33, Durham, Duke University Press, 2010
  • A special issue about Japanese photography in art press, the international review of contemporary art, contains two interviews with Japanese photographers: « Chihiro Minato: Only Once » and « Japanese photography: In Tokyo with Araki », art press, number 353, 2009
  • « Setouchi. Japan's Festival of the Inland Sea », art press, number 371, 2010
  • « Art, eroticism and cannibalism in Japan », art press2, number 20, 2011
  • « Visualizing the Impossible: Art after Fukushima», art press, number 423, 2015
  • « Nature and Creation in Japanese Aesthetics », Wabi Sabi Shima, Of the Aesthetics of Perfection and Chaos in the Japanese Archipelago, Thalie Art Foundation editions, 2015
  • « France-Japan: The Coral Writers », Contemporary French & Francophone Studies, Volume 21, 2017 - Issue 1: France-Asia, p. 8-27.