Chloé Delaume


Chloé Delaume is a French award-winning novelist, performer, musician, and occasional singer.

Biography

Born in Paris, Delaume spent her childhood in Beirut. In 1983 a tragic episode both changed the course of her life and marked her body of work: at ten years old, she witnessed her father murder her mother, then kill himself. She then lived amongst her grandparents, her uncle and aunt. She is the niece of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
Delaume enrolled at the to become a teacher, just like her mother did. Seemingly disappointed by the university's system, Delaume decided to write on her own while getting jobs as a waitress at hostess bars, which prompted her to write her first published novel for Farrago/Léo Scheer editions: Les Mouflettes d'Atropos. She then collaborated under her birth name on the literary magazine Le matricule des anges.
Chloé Delaume is her nom de plume: the name Chloé hails from the heroine of the novel L'Écume des jours by Boris Vian and her last name, Delaume, comes from Antonin Artaud's writings/play L'Arve et l'Aume.

Life and writing

Chloé Delaume has written various novels in which she uses an original form of poetic research. Apart from writing novels, she composes and collaborates lyrics to Julien Locquet's musical project Dorine Muraille. These collaborations have also spurred multimedia performances.
Le Cri du sablier, won the Prix Décembre in 2001.
Autofiction, technology, biopower, gameplay, literary activism and the struggle against psychosis are some of the prevalent motifs throughout her body of work.

Works