Referred to by Voici magazine as "a distant descendant of Dorothy Parker", Anna

Gavalda was born in an upper-class suburb of Paris. While working as French teacher in
high school, a collection of her short stories was first published in 1999 under the title
"Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part" that met with both critical acclaim
and commercial success, selling more than three-quarters of a million copies in her native
France and winning the 2000 "Grand Prix RTL-Lire." The book was translated into
numerous languages including in English and sold in twenty-seven countries. It was
published to acclaim in North America in 2003 as "I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me
Somewhere." The book received much praise and is a library and school selection
worldwide in several languages.

Gavalda's first novel, Je l'aimais (Someone I Loved) was published in France in February
2002 and later that year in English. Inspired by the failure of her own marriage, it too was
a major literary success and a bestseller and was followed by the short (96 pages)
juvenile novel 35 kilos d'espoir (95 Pounds of Hope) that she said she wrote "to pay
tribute to those of my students who were dunces in school but otherwise fantastic
people".

In 2004, her third novel, "Ensemble c'est tout," focused on the lives of four people living
in an apartment house: a struggling young artist who works as an office cleaner at night, a
young aristocrat misfit, a cook, and an elderly grandmother. The 600-page book is a
bestseller in France and has been translated into English as Hunting and Gathering.

As of 2007, her three books have sold more than 3 million copies in France [1]. Ensemble
c'est tout was made into a successful movie in 2007 by Claude Berri, with Audrey Tautou
and Guillaume Canet[2]. The adaptation of her first novel, Je l'aimais, with Daniel Auteuil
and Marie-Josée Croze, was filmed in 2009 by Zabou Breitman[3].

Divorced, and the mother of two, Gavalda lives in the city of Melun, Seine-et-Marne,
about 50 km southeast of Paris. In addition to writing novels, she also contributes to Elle
magazine