Martin Winckler is a French M.D. and a short story, novel and essay writer. His main subjects are the French medical system, the healing relationship and contraception; he also wrote critical papers and books about TV serials (he is one of the first specialists of this subject in France).

Biography

His family returned to France in 1963. He was a young dedicated reader and writer. Graduated from the Medicine Faculty of Tours

Tours

Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...

, he practiced in a small country town nearby from 1983 to 1993. In these days he works for the magazine Prescrire under his actual name, Marc Zaffran.

In 1984, his first short stories were published under a pseudonym: Martin Winckler. This name is a tribute to the great French writer Georges Perec

Georges Perec

Georges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist and essayist. He is a member of the Oulipo group...

 : Gaspard Winckler is one of the main characters in La Vie mode d'emploi, a very important book in Marc Zaffran's literary education. His first novel La Vacation (pub. 1989) introduces the central character of his major novels, Bruno Sachs M.D., who become famous in France with his second published novel La Maladie de Sachs

La Maladie de Sachs

La maladie de Sachs is a 1999 French film directed by Michel Deville from a novel by Martin Winckler. It won the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Prix Méliès, and received César nominations for Best Actor, Best Director and Best Writing.- Plot :Dr...

 (Sachs disease in English), adapted for a movie by Rosalinde et Michel Deville

Michel Deville

Michel Deville is a French film director and screenwriter.Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors...

 (1999); Albert Dupontel

Albert Dupontel

Albert Dupontel is a French actor and film director. He started his career as a stand-up comedian...

 plays Bruno Sachs.

In 1993 he stopped being a country doctor and became a full time writer and translator; but he remains a part-time doctor in Le Mans

Le Mans

Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...

 public hospital.

Created in 2004, his web site has published numerous texts about healing, contraception, TV serials. The "Contraception / Gynécology" part is the most popular viewed by internauts.

Since 2009 he has lived in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 where he works as an invited research person in the Centre de Recherches en éthique à l'Université de Montréal (CREUM), for a research project about ethic formation for healing persons.

Works

Medicine

• Contraceptions mode d'emploi, 2001 ; Second ed. reviewed, Au Diable Vauvert, 2003. Third ed., J'ai Lu, 2007
• C’est grave docteur ? Ce que disent les patients, ce qu'entendent les médecins, La Martinière, 2002.
• Nous sommes tous des patients, interview with Catherine Nabokov, Le Livre de poche, 2005.
• Les Droits du Patient, with Salomé Viviana, Collection "Soigner", Fleurus 2007
• Choisir sa contraception, Collection "La Santé en questions", Fleurus 2007.
• Tout ce que vous vouliez savoir sur les règles... sans jamais avoir osé le demander, Collection "La Santé en questions", Fleurus 2008.

Novels, etc.

• • La Vacation, POL, 1989.
  • La Maladie de Sachs, (Sachs disease in English), POL, 1998 ; film directed by Michel Deville
    Michel Deville
    Michel Deville is a French film director and screenwriter.Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors...
    
     with Albert Dupontel
    Albert Dupontel
    Albert Dupontel is a French actor and film director. He started his career as a stand-up comedian...
    
    , 1999.
  • Les Trois Médecins, POL, 2004 ; (Bruno Sachs' years in Medicine Faculty).

• • Le Poulpe, « Touche pas à mes deux seins », Baleine n°221 (2001) puis Librio n°559 (2002).
• Légendes, autobiographic text, P.O.L, 2002
• Plumes d'Ange, autobiographic text, P.O.L, 2003
  • Mort in vitro, Fleuve noir & Mutualité française, 2003.
  • Camisoles, Fleuve Noir, 2006.
  • Noirs scalpels (anthology collection Néo ) au Cherche Midi, 2006.
• J'ai Mal Là ..., Les Petits Matins, 2006
  • Le numéro 7 collection Néo au Cherche Midi, 2007 ; (relates with the British TV show The Prisoner
    The Prisoner
    The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
    
    )
• Histoires en l'air, P.O.L, 2008
• Un pour Deux, "La Trilogie Twain, tome 1" Calmann-Lévy, 2008
• L'un ou l'autre, "La Trilogie Twain, tome 2", Calmann-Lévy, 2009
• Deux pour Tous, "La Trilogie Twain, tome 3", Calmann-Lévy, 2009
• Le Chœur des femmes, P.O.L, 2009 (the first novel in which Bruno Sachs is absent, but some characters speak about him because he left France for Montreal... just like the author)

TV serials

• 1993 : Mission impossible with Alain Carrazé (Néo - Huitième art)
• 1997 : Les Nouvelles Séries américaines et britanniques 1996-1997 (coll. co-dirigé avec Alain Carrazé), Belles Lettres
• 1999 : Les Séries télé (with Christophe Petit & Jean-Jacques Schléret), Larousse, collection « Guide Totem » ; dictionnaires de séries.
• 2003-2005 : Histoire des séries américaines :
  • tome 1, Les Miroirs de la vie, Le Passage
  • tome 2 (collective), Les Miroirs obscurs, Le Diable Vauvert
• 2004 : Les séries TV et le soap opera, lecture at the Université de tous les savoirs ; you can see it at http://www.canal-u.education.fr/canalu/affiche_programme.php?programme_id=555073540&vHtml=0.
• 2005 : Séries télé : De Zorro à Friends, 60 ans de téléfictions américaines, Éditions J'ai Lu, Collection Librio Repères
• 2007 : Le meilleur des séries, collective, Éditions Hors Collection
• 2008 : L'année des Séries 2008, collective, Éditions Hors Collection

Others

• Les Cahiers Marcœur, 1991 ; never published, available at Martin Winckler's website. Fragments have been published as Le mystère Marcœur (L’amourier, 2001).
• Neuf contes pour nos enfants, CD, De Vive Voix, 2002.
• Le corps en suspens, texts by Martin Winckler - photographs by Henri Zerdoun, 50 photographies en hôpital, chez des médecins à la campagne ou en ville, Zulma, 2002
• Super Héros, EPA, 2003 ; (about comics characters).
• Odyssée. Une aventure radiophonique, Le Cherche-Midi, 2003 ; anthology of radio chronicles on France Inter
  France Inter
  France Inter is a major French public radio channel and part of Radio France. It is a "generalist" station, aiming to provide a wide national audience with a full service of news and intelligent spoken-word programming, both serious and entertaining, liberally punctuated with an eclectic mix of...
  
  .
• Docteur Je sais tout, chronicles in Spirou HeBDo, readers asked questions to which he gave answers in an ironic mode. Illustrations by Johan De Moor.
• Le Rire de Zorro, Bayard, 2005

Préface

• Changer de sexe, Identités transsexuelles, by Stéphanie Nicot and Alexandra Augst-Merelle, Editions Le Cavalier Bleu, 2006

External links

• Martin Winckler's personal website
• Lecture by Martin Winckler