Jonathan Littell

Franco-American writer and filmmaker Jonathan Littell spent many years working for humanitarian organizations, mainly in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His novel "Les Bienveillantes" (Prix Goncourt and Prix de l'Académie française 2006) explored in depth, through the Nazi experience, the question of institutional violence and mass murder. Since then, he has pursued this line of inquiry through numerous reports for Le Monde and XXI magazine, first during the war in Georgia, then in Chechnya, the DRC, South Sudan, Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), and finally in Homs (Syria). His fascination with images led him to publish Triptych: Three Studies on Francis Bacon, in which he analyzes the work of the English painter in the light of the great masters who influenced him, Byzantine painting and the history of photography.

Jonathan Littell is also passionate about cinema, and in 2016 he presented his first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival, a documentary about former Ugandan child soldiers entitled "Wrong Elements". The film, distributed by Le Pacte, was released on French screens in April 2017 and received great reviews. In 2018, Jonathan Littell returns to the novel with the publication, by Éditions Gallimard, of "Une vieille histoire".