�rik Orsenna is the pen-name of �rik Arnoult, a French politician and novelist. After studying philosophy and political science at the Institut d'�tudes Politiques de Paris, Orsenna specialized in economics at the London School of Economics. He was a close collaborator of Fran�ois Mitterrand and held several government positions in the 1980s and 1990s. He is a member of the Conseil d'�tat, having been appointed in 1985. He was elected to the Acad�mie fran�aise on 28 May 1998. For Voyage au pays du coton he received the second prize of the Lettre Ulysses Award in 2006. [More at Wikipedia]

March 22nd, 1947 in Paris (Age 77)