Catherine Poulain

Born in Barr,[1] Poulain left France at the age of twenty and travelled on various continents. She arrived in Quebec in 1987, then settled in Alaska where she worked as a fisherman for ten years before being deported in 2003 by the American immigration services for illegal work.[1][2]

A few years after her return to France - where she lived from various agricultural works in Provence and the Alps - Poulain drew on her overseas experiences to help write her first novel, Le Grand Marin (Woman at Sea),[3] which was described as a wild, gripping story of one woman’s battle with the elements on board an Alaskan fishing boat. It became a best-seller (70,000 copies sold in the months following its publication) and was awarded numerous literary prizes in 2016, including the Prix Joseph-Kessel, and the Ouest France Prize Étonnants Voyageurs.[4] Poulain was also a finalist for the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, but was beaten by four votes to five by Joseph Andras[5]

Her second novel, Le Cœur blanc, was selected for the Prix Décembre 2018.[6]

• 2016: Le Grand Marin, Éditions de l'Olivier ISBN 978-2823608632 – prix Joseph-Kessel and eleven other maritime or travel writer literary prizes.[4][7]
• 2018: Le Cœur blanc, Éditions de l'Olivier ISBN 978-2-8236-1359-9