Mathias Énard is a French novelist. He studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He has lived in Barcelona for about fifteen years, interrupted in 2013 by a writing residency in Berlin. He won several awards for Zone, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre, and won the Prix Goncourt/Le Choix de l’Orient, the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée, and the Prix du Roman-News for Rue des Voleurs. He won the 2015 Prix Goncourt for Boussole (Compass). In 2020 he was Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature at the University of Bern.