Jean-Bernard Pouy was born on January 2, 1946 in Nérac, a town in Aquitaine, southwestern France, but grew up in Paris. After earning a DEA degree in Art History, focusing on Cinema, he worked as a high-school counselor in Paris from 1972-80. He has also worked as a drawing teacher, graphic designer, proofreader, and scriptwriter, and sometimes went without work. His first novel, Spinoza Encule Hegel (1983), took an ironic view of the revolutionary atmosphere of Paris in 1968: an armed and suicidal band of ten Spinozists enter a confrontation with the Hegelians. Pouy's best-known creation is the distinctly anarchistic fictional character Gabriel Lecouvreur, who is called Le Poulpe (meaning "the octopus," but also a play on words evoking pulp fiction), who has appeared in a series of popular stories. The most important innovation of the Le Poulpe series is to use the detective story as a tool of contemporary social critique and resistance. This series has included a number of collaborative efforts, including titles co-authored by Pouy and other writers, a title written by a group of high school students, and one created by a network of bloggers. The Cheryl series has spun off from Le Poulpe, featuring Lecouvreur's girlfriend Cheryl as the main protagonist. Full Fare is the first English translation of anything Pouy has written. This is partly due to the prevalence of contemporary slang and the distinctly French settings in Pouy's writing. The translation and editing of this work have been major undertakings, but it is hoped that this will be a first taste for English-language readers of what Francophone readers have been enjoying for years.
