A short life of the author
Maylis de Kerangal (born 1967) is a French novelist whose prose combines the precision of technical writing with the emotional intensity of poetry. Her novel Réparer les vivants (The Heart, 2014) — which follows a heart from the moment of its donor’s brain death to its transplantation — is one of the most extraordinary French novels of the twenty-first century, and it cemented her reputation as a writer capable of finding the sublime in procedure.
Life and Career
De Kerangal studied philosophy and history in Paris before working in publishing and as an editor at Éditions du Baron Perché, a children’s imprint. Her early fiction attracted attention for its muscular prose and its interest in physical labor, landscapes, and the material world.
Corniche Kennedy (2008) was set in Marseille, following teenagers who jump from cliffs into the sea — a novel that treated the body in space with almost cinematic precision. Naissance d’un pont (Birth of a Bridge, 2010) was her breakthrough — a novel about the construction of a suspension bridge in a fictional Californian city that read like an epic poem about collective labor, engineering, and the transformation of landscape. It won the Prix Médicis.
Réparer les vivants (The Heart, 2014) condensed twenty-four hours of medical procedure — a surfing accident, brain death, organ retrieval, transplantation — into a novel that was simultaneously a thriller, a meditation on the body, and an exploration of how institutions handle death. The book’s prose was celebrated for its almost liturgical rhythm and its capacity to make medical procedure emotionally devastating. It won multiple prizes and was adapted into a film and a stage play.
Un monde à portée de main (Painting Time, 2018) explored the world of trompe-l’oeil painting and decorative arts, following a young woman training to paint fake marble and wood. Like all de Kerangal’s work, it treated craft as a subject of genuine fascination.
Key Works
- Birth of a Bridge (2010)
- The Heart (2014)
- Painting Time (2018)
Collecting de Kerangal
French first editions (Verticales/Gallimard) are the true firsts. Réparer les vivants first edition brings $30–$60. English translations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; MacLehose Press) are affordable at $15–$30. De Kerangal’s reputation is still growing internationally, and her work is underpriced. Signed copies are available at French literary festivals.