Julia Kristeva

Julia Kristeva was born in Sliven, Bulgaria and attended a French-speaking convent school. After graduating from the University of Sofia, she moved to Paris and has lived there ever since. In 1965, she joined the "Tel Quel" literary group, where she met her future husband, Philippe Sollers (born Joyaux). She is a professor of linguistics at the University of Paris VII-Diderot, and has been a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York. She has published collections of essays, works on psychoanalysis, philosophy, linguistics, and literature. She's also written a number of novels, including Le Vieil homme et les loups (The Old Man and the Wolves, 1991), Meurtre à Byzance (Murder in Byzantium, 2004), and Possessions (1996), which are often allegorical and have elements of detective fiction. Some of her books have been published under the name Julia Joyaux. She is also the founder and head of the Prix Simone de Beauvoir, an international human rights prize for women's freedom.