Patrick Deville

Patrick Deville (Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France, 1957) is a writer. After graduating in French and Comparative Literature and Philosophy he served as French Cultural Attaché for the Persian Gulf. Since making his literary debut in 1987, he has published twelve historical novels, all based on exhaustive documentation, frequently set in colonial times, and mixing fiction with real-life characters. His books have been translated into more than ten languages and include several titles in Spanish, namelyEl catalejo (Anagrama, 1990), Los fuegos artificiales (Península, 1994), Pura vida: vida y muerte de William Walker (Seix Barral, 2005), Ecuatoria (Anagrama, 2015), and his well-known work Peste & Cólera (Anagrama, 2014), which gives an account of the life of the Swiss biologist Alexandre Yersin, discoverer of the bacillus causing bubonic plague. This latter work received the Femina and Prix des Prix awards.