Villa Gillet - Rhône-Alpes - recherches contemporaines

Vincent Borel was born in Gap in 1962. His passion for the opera comes from his grandfather, a Spanish Republican and music-lover. He studied literature in a prestigious preparatory school in Paris, and at the University of Aix-en-Provence, where he was a fixture at the music festival and performed in several operas. In 1985 he moved to Paris and made his living doing odd jobs, mostly as a caregiver. It was during this period that he discovered Parisian nightlife: raves, trance, and techno. He recounts this experience in Un ruban noir (Actes Sud, 1996). He joined 7 à Paris as a journalist in 1986. In 1988, he met Jean-Francois Bizot, who hired him at Actuel. In 1998, he became the editor of Nova Magazine. In the same year he published the autobiographical account Vie et mort d’un crabe (Actes Sud, 1998). In 1999 he ventured into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with a project to transcribe Lefevre d'Etaples’ “Bible”. In 2002 he published Baptiste (Sabine Wespieser publishing), which was very well received by critics and won the Prix des Muses, narrative category, in 2003.