Daniel Pennac

Daniel Pennac (real name: Daniel Pennaccioni) is a French writer.

He was born in 1944 in Casablanca, Morocco, into a military family. By origin he is Corsican. He spent his childhood and youth in garrisons in French colonies in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Pennac received his education in Nice. At school Daniel was a poor student, but toward the end of his studies he began to make remarkable progress thanks to the influence of four teachers, whom Pennac recalls in his book Chagrin d'école, and to love. These influences first led to the baccalauréat, and then to a degree in French language and literature, which gave Pennac the right to teach in secondary schools. Pennac received his degree in 1969, immediately after the student revolution. He worked as a woodcarver, a taxi driver, and an artist-illustrator; for more than 25 years he was a teacher in Paris and Soissons, mostly working with children with developmental delays.

His first literary efforts were rejected by most editorial offices, but one leading editor sent the author a reasoned analysis of his work and advised him to develop his evident literary talent.

For two years, from 1978 to 1980, Daniel Pennac lived in Brazil, where he decided to write books for children. It was during this period that his well-known books Dog (1982) and Eye of the Wolf (1984) appeared.

Later he wrote political satire, and then developed an interest in the detective “black series.” Thus in 1985 the novel The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up appeared — the first in the series about Benjamin Malaussène, a professional scapegoat. It was followed by The Fairy of the Carbine (1987), The Little Shopkeeper of Prose (1989), Mr. Malaussène (1995), and Desire of the Fruit (1997), also created with great skill in the detective-humorous genre.