Stanislas de Quercize has worked in the luxury industry since joining the Richemont group in 1990. Rising through the ranks, he led Montblanc in France and the United States, Cartier in both countries, Van Cleef & Arpels internationally, and later Cartier International and Richemont France. Known for bringing fresh energy to his teams, he also served as a board member of the Comité Colbert from 2005 to 2015 and sits on the executive boards of several major brands, including Barnes, Messika, and Louboutin.

A prominent business leader, father of four, husband, and engaged citizen, he is deeply committed to charitable work. In Emparadiser la vie (Alisio, 2025), he reflects on his career and shares insights from many inspiring leaders. His core belief? That each person’s mission on Earth is to “radiate happiness, throughout the world and for humanity.”

In French.

A political scientist, Islamic studies scholar, and associate researcher at the Paul Ricoeur Fund (philosophy – hermeneutics), French-Moroccan teacher Rachid Benzine was recently appointed to France’s National Consultative Ethics Committee for Life Sciences and Health.

He published his first essay, Nous avons tant de choses à nous dire (Albin Michel, 1998), co-written with Father Christian Delorme, a key figure in Muslim-Catholic dialogue in a suburb of Lyon. He later co-authored Des mille et une façons d’être juif ou musulman (Seuil, 2017) with Delphine Horvilleur.

His novel Les silences des pères (Seuil, 2023) explores the generational gap between migrant fathers and their sons.

In L’homme qui lisait des livres (Julliard, 2025), he tells the story of a bookseller in Gaza who believes that books are our greatest hope for survival—not to escape reality, but to fully inhabit it. A powerful act of faith in the transformative power of words.

In French.

A sinologist, anthropologist of religions, and expert in Taoism, Sandrine Chenivesse spent twenty years living in China. Her academic articles and lectures at top institutions reflect the depth of her research. Today, she works as a transgenerational psychoanalyst and devotes herself to writing.

In the 1990s, then a young ethnologist, she embarked on an extraordinary journey: on the banks of the Yangzi River, in a village at the foot of Mount Fengdu, she explored the “City of the Bad Death” in search of the last masters of ancient rituals—rites through which the living could cross into the afterlife to reunite with their dead.

Faced with the silence of the villagers, a life-altering incident abruptly halted her momentum, plunging her into a liminal world—and an initiation that would shape her deeply. It would take her twenty years to complete The Fortress of the Dead Souls (La Forteresse des âmes mortes, Actes Sud, 2024).

In French.

Jonathan Coe is one of Britain’s most beloved novelists. Over the years, he has received numerous honors and awards, including Prix du livre européen with Middle England (Le coeur de l’Angleterre, Gallimard, 2019) and Prix Médicis étranger for The House of Sleep (La maison du sommeil, Gallimard, 1998).

The Proof of my Innocence (Les preuves de mon innocence, Gallimard, 2025) is a blisteringly funny political critique starting with a murder mystery in the middle of an ultraconservative rally in the mansion of a great heir as Britain finds itself under the leadership of Prime Minister Liz Truss whose tenure will only last for seven weeks. This satire of the English crime thriller denounces the rise of extremes and the treatment of information in the post-truth era.

We are welcoming Jonathan Coe on the occasion of the French launch of his fascinating and hilarious multi-faceted investigation.  Interview conducted by Clare O’Dea, journalist and author.

In English.