This Friday, October 5th at 6:30 PM, the Jacques Audiberti Grand Literary Prize will be awarded to Jean-Christophe Rufin at the Albert Camus Community Media Library. The Jacques Audiberti literary prize honors “a work that resonates with the work of Jacques Audiberti and remains faithful to Mediterranean culture.”
Jean-Christophe Rufin, born in 1952, is a French doctor, historian, writer, and diplomat.
He is one of the pioneers of the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) humanitarian movement and has dedicated over twenty years of his life to working in NGOs such as Action Against Hunger, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the French Red Cross. In 1999, he was stationed in Kosovo as Administrator of the Première Urgence Association and led a seminar entitled “UN and Peacekeeping” at the War College.
A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, he served as an advisor to the Secretary of State for Human Rights from 1986 to 1988. In 1989-1990, he relocated to Brazil as Cultural and Cooperation Attaché at the French Embassy. In 1993, he joined François Léotard’s cabinet, the Minister of Defense, as a specialist advisor on North/South strategic relations, a position he held for two years. He was Research Director at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations between 1996 and 1999 and led the first humanitarian mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Finally, in 2007, he was appointed French Ambassador to Senegal and The Gambia.
Simultaneously, he lectured at the Paris Institute of Political Studies between 1991 and 2002, then at the University of Paris 13 and the War College. Since 2005, he has served on the Supervisory Board of the Express-Expansion group and on the Boards of the Pasteur Institute, France Télévision, and OFPRA.
An author of numerous novels and winner of the Prix Goncourt in 2001 for “Rouge Brésil,” he was elected in 2008 to the Académie Française as its youngest member.
Program:
Friday, October 5th – Auditorium of the Media Library
At 6:30 PM, official award presentation to Jean-Christophe Rufin, physician, historian, writer, and French diplomat, by Jean Leonetti, Deputy Mayor of Antibes Juan-les-Pins, followed by a reading of excerpts from his works.
Saturday, October 6th – Auditorium of the Media Library
At 3 PM, meet the laureate, followed by a signing session.
