About
Born in Viêt Nam, Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut grew up both in the States (Michigan) and in France (Franche-Comté region). After a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology she came back to Paris for professional reasons. In 1999, together with her sister Kim, she started to write the investigations of Mandarin Tan, set in 17th century Viet Nam. Published by Philippe Picquier Editions, the series is centred upon a hero inspired by the mythologized figure of one of Thanh-Van and Kim’s ancestors. From 2002 the stories are her own work.
After The Palace of the Mandarin (NiL, 2009), a collection of short stories, and The Woman in the Mirror (Robert Laffont 2010), a story mixing fantastic and mystery elements against the background of Dutch painting, the Mandarin Tan is back with The Ravens of Mid-Autumn (Picquier, 2011). The investigations of Mandarin Tan have now been translated into several languages.
Autobiography for Quais du Polar
« Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut likes mandarins and, logic and the fantastic, volcanoes and stars, trumpets of the dead and fly amanitas, night trains and ghost stations.’
Crime favourites
Film: Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas
Book: The Alienist, by Caleb Carr
Author: Ross Macdonald