Born in 1959, François Garde, senior civil servant fascinated by overseas territories, was high commissionner of the French austral and antartic Territory. As a trekker, he loves to leave the French Alps, where he lives near Chamonix, to hike in Iceland, in Kerguelen, in Antartic or in Greenland.
What happened of the white savage won a dozen of prizes in France, Italy and Canda, including the famous Goncourt Prize for first novels in 2012, and was published in eight languages, including English.
Novelist and travel writer, Garde has published several novels or essays, some of them (in French only) dedicated to polar areas : La baleine dans tous ses états, All about the whale (2015) Marcher à Kerguelen, Walking through Kerguelen (2018), story of a 25 days trek in remote subantartic Kerguelen island ; La position des pôles/ The position of the poles (2018) ironically subtitled little treaty of subjective geopolitics ; A perte de vue le mer gelée / As far the eye can see the frozen sea (2021), an imaginary biography of Pytheas, the very first known polar explorer, who left Marseilles to sail northbound and discover Iceland, et the time of Alexander the Great.
He published recently a book of short stories about travels and lies, A beau mentir qui vient de loin/ Beautiful lie that comes from afar (2022).
Languages spoken : french and english
Photo credit : ©Studio PONANT - Olivier BLAUD