Born in 1969 in Nancy, Virginie Despentes is a French author and director. Her first novel Baise-moi, published in 1994, was a great success. She is the author of a dozen novels, short stories and essays. Her best-known work is the Vernon Subutex trilogy, published between 2015 and 2017. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Renaudaut Prize in 2010 for Apocalypse Bébé and the Anaïs-Nin Prize in 2015 for Vernon Subutex, volume 1. She was a member of the Goncourt Academy between 2016 and 2020.