Julia Kerninon

‘Julia Kerninon has all the makings of an icon,’ — Nathalie Azoulai, Marianne

Julia Kerninon was born in 1987 and holds a Ph.D in American Literature. She has been compared to French New Wave filmmaker Éric Rohmer for her sense of style and feeling for dialogue, and to Alain Resnais for the artful structure of her narratives. But, most of all, her work stands out for its contagious joy, drive, exuberance. Her first novel, Buvard, has won the Prix Françoise Sagan, among many other awards. Kerninon’s second novel, Le dernier amour d’Attila Kiss, won the Prix de la Closerie des Lilas in 2016, and her novel My Devotion, winner of the 2018 Fénéon Literary Prize, was published in English translation by Europa Editions in 2020. She lives in Nantes.

A Respectable Occupation was translated by Ruth Diver.

Related articles and media:
An interview with Julia Kerninon as part of French Book Week.

‘Marvellously contagious’
— Le Point

‘…it’s a fond portrait of her family, charming coming-of-age tale and, mostly, a love letter to books.’
— Tatler

‘Julia Kerninon lays down sentences as definitive as dictums, impresses with her maturity of style and command of narrative. The reader plunges in, with the same voraciousness she puts into her writing.’ 
— ELLE (France)