Authors Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow were not exactly destined to meet. He grew up speaking French in Sherbrooke Quebec, and she, speaking English in Ancaster Ontario. Fortunately, they found each other in the late 1980s at McGill University, where each decided to master the other’s language.

Professional writers for almost two decades, their work has appeared in newspapers and magazines in English and French, in Canada, the US and France. From 1999-2001 they lived in Paris, where they put their bilingual experience to use exploring the mysteries of France and the French. Working like anthropologists, they wined, dined, talked and traveled with the French, visiting schools, farms and France’s suburbs to uncover the roots of the French national character.

In 2003, they published the bestselling Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong. The Globe and Mail called it “simply marvelous.” The Wall Street Journal said, “After reading it, you may still think the French are arrogant, aloof and high-handed, but you will know why.”

In the fall of 2006, Nadeau and Barlow released The Story of French (Knopf Canada, St-Martin’s Press, and Robson Books in the UK). The New York Times called it "...a well-told, highly accessible history of the French language", The Montreal Gazette called it "mind-altering." The Story of French won the 2007 Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction.

In 2007, Nadeau and Barlow released a French language translation of The Story of French, La Grande aventure de la langue française, in North America (Québec Amérique) . It will be appearing in France in 2008 (Michel Lafon).

Nadeau and Barlow’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, The International Herald Tribune and the Courrier international. They live with their two daughters in Montreal, where they are award-winning contributors to the French Canadian public affairs magazine L’actualité.

-November 22, 2007