Jeanne Benameur is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 woman writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. Her father was Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

n and her mother was Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

. The family moved to La Rochelle

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...

 when Benameur was 5 years old.

A professor of French until 2001, Benameur has published with various publishing houses, most notably Éditions Denoël

Éditions Denoël

Éditions Denoël is a French publishing house founded in 1930 by the Belgian Robert Denoël and the American Bernard Steele .Called the Éditions Denoël-Steel during its first few years, it had its first success in 1932 with Voyage au bout de la nuit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline...

 and Éditions Thierry Magnier. In spite of her multicultural origins (Algerian, Italian, and French), Benameur only writes in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. In 2001, her novel Les Demeurées won the Unicef Prize.

Her autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, ça t'apprendra à vivre, was published in 2006.