Born in 1941 in Sliven, Bulgaria, Julia Kristeva has lived and worked in France since 1966. A writer, psychoanalyst, and emeritus professor at Paris Cité University, she was the first recipient of the Holberg Prize in 2004, established by the Norwegian government to address the lack of humanities in the Nobel Prize roster.

The author of around 30 books, she has notably explored semiotics (Revolution in Poetic Language, 1974), depression and melancholy (Black Sun, 1987) exile (Strangers to Ourselves, 1988), and feminine singularities with her trilogy Female genius: life, madness, words - Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein, Colette; a trilogy, 1999-2002). Kristeva, who shared her life with writer Philippe Sollers (1936-2023) between Paris and their house on the Ile de Ré, western France, also wrote novels such as The Samourai (1990), and recently published Prelude to an Ethics of the Feminine (2024).

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