Benoît Coquil
From 16 June to 7 July 2025

Benoît Coquil is a French writer who was born in Brest in 1989. His PhD thesis was on the Argentine writer Sergio Chejfec and he subsequently taught Latin American literature at the University of Picardy. A contributor to several reviews, including L’autoroute de sable, Décapage, and Sève, he published his first novel in 2021, titled Buenos Aires n’existe pas (Flammarion), which blends archival material and fiction around Marcel Duchamp’s visit to Argentina in 1918. His second book, Petites choses (Rivages, 2023), recounts the discovery of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Mexico of the 1950s and the psychedelic revolution they sparked. Shortlisted for the 2023 Prix Femina, the novel was awarded the following year the Prix littéraire du deuxième roman de Laval and the Prix François-Victor Noury of the French Academy. It has been translated into four languages.