Miguel Bonnefoy

Born in Paris in 1986, Miguel Bonnefoy is a French and Venezuelan writer. After growing up in Venezuela and Portugal, he studied Lettres Modernes at the Sorbonne and now works in France.
In 2009, he won the Grand Prix de la Nouvelle de la Sorbonne Nouvelle with his work La Maison et le Voleur, and published in Italian Quand on enferma le labyrinthe dans le Minotaure (edizione del Giano, Rome). In 2011, Naufrages (éditions Quespire, Paris) was shortlisted for the Prix de l’Inaperçu 2012. Two years later, he won the Prix du Jeune Ecrivain with Icare et autres nouvelles (Buchet-Chastel, Paris). In 2015, Le Voyage d’Octavio (Rivages, Paris) was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, and won the Prix de la Vocation, the Prix des Cinq Continents (Special Mention), the Prix Fénéon, the Prix Edmée de la Rochefoucauld and the Prix L’Ile aux Livres. In 2016, he published Jungle with Editions Paulsen (Paris), winner of the Prix littéraire des Lycéens et Apprentis d’Ile-de-France. Finally, a year later, in 2017, Sucre Noir, published by Rivages, was a finalist for the Prix Femina, and won the Prix Renaissance and the Prix des lycéens de l’Escale du Livre de Bordeaux.

Project
The project for the Villa Médicis is to write a novel on the theme of utopia, more specifically on the Republic of Libertalia, one of the first maritime utopias, based on the island of Diego Suarez, off the coast of Madagascar, founded by a French captain and an Italian Jesuit who met in Rome.