Lannan Foundation

Rikki Ducornet, a cosmopolitan and intellectual artist, has lived in North Africa, South America, France, and Canada. Of her most recent book, Gazelle, the Washington Post writes, “[It] is a sensuous book. A mix of smells pervades its pages, from orange blossoms, perfumes, mint, almonds, limes, roses, jasmine, and long-simmered delicacies to animal dung, vinegar, urine, and long-buried mummies. Great stand-alone sentences are enough to make one’s mouth water.”

She is the author of six novels including The Jade Cabinet and The Word “Desire." In 1993, she was awarded a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. Of writing she says, “It is the work of the writer to move beyond the simple definitions or descriptions of things-- which is of limited interest after all-- and to bring a dream to life through the alchemy of language; to move from the street-- the place of received ideas-- into the forest, the place of the unknown.” She is currently at work on a novel about the Algerian War for Independence.