Éric Vuillard

Éric Vuillard is a French writer and film director born in 1968 in Lyon. He is known for his distinctive narrative approach that blends historical research with literary fiction, presenting real historical events with novelistic intensity and moral urgency. His books occupy a unique space between history, essay, and fiction. His Prix Goncourt-winning L'Ordre du jour (The Order of the Day, 2017) is a slim, compressed account of the meetings between German industrialists and Nazi officials in the lead-up to World War II, and the Anschluss with Austria. The book's method — granular historical detail rendered with the pace and tension of a thriller — became Vuillard's signature. Vuillard has also directed several short films and documentary works. His other notable books include Tristesse de la terre (2014), about Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows, and La Guerre des pauvres (2019), a novella about the 16th-century peasant leader Thomas Müntzer. He is regarded as one of the most original voices in contemporary European historical literature, using the techniques of literary fiction to illuminate the systemic forces and moral failures that produced historical catastrophes.