Riad Sattouf was born in 1978 to a Syrian father and a French mother. He grew up in Syria in a village near Homs, went to a Muslim school, and then moved to France when he was 13.
Following his studies in cinema animation at Gobelins, he presented his project “Les Pauvres Aventures de Jérémie” to Dargaud publishing in 2002. The series narrates the adventures of a Franco-Libyan boy and his friends. Three volumes were released as part of the Poisson Pilote collection between 2003 and 2005. In the meantime, he produced the one-shot “No Sex in New York” (Dargaud 2004, Europe Comics 2017), the humorous adventures of a Frenchman in New York.
Sattouf also published work with Bréal publishing (“Manuel d’un puceau,” 2003, and “Ma Circoncision,” 2004), with Hachette (“Retour au collège,” 2005), with Audie- Fluide Glacial (“Pascal Brutal, 2006-2013) and with L’Association (“La Vie secrète de jeunes,” 2007-2013).
Riad Sattouf received the René Goscinny Prize in 2013 for the first volume of “Les Pauvres Aventures de Jérémie.” In 2010, the third volume of the Pascal Brutal adventures was awarded the prize for best album (Fauve d’or) at Angoulême Festival.
In 2009, Sattouf turned his energies toward cinema. He wrote and produced the film “Les Beaux Gosses,” which received the César Award for best first film in 2010. While working on his second feature-length film, “Jacky au royaume des filles,” he published the compilation of “Les Pauvres Aventures de Jérémie” (Dargaud 2013), and also the wildly successful “L’Arabe du Futur,” an autobiographical work about his childhood in Libya and Syria, for which he was awarded the prize for best album at Angoulême in 2015.
