Dominique Simonnet

The Speaker

Writer and publisher Dominique Simonnet was senior editor at the French weekly newsmagazine L’Express until 2006, when he was in charge of « the long interview » where he met many of the most important figures of our time. He is also the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books.

He creates and anchors several TV and radio programs on national networks and is considered as having contributed to making science, arts, culture and international politics accessible to a general audience. In the 1990’s, Dominique Simonnet created and anchored  weekly programs for teens, including Drôle de planète on the national network France 2 and Tranches de sciences  on France 3. He authored the radio series Aventures sans gravité (winner of the Paul Gilson award for radio in French”) for France Culture and Histoire de la conquête spatiale for Radio France.
He is also a founding member of the French environmental movement.

His best seller, La Plus Belle Histoire du Monde [The Most Beautiful Story in the World] in which he talks with Hubert Reeves, Joël de Rosnay and Yves Coppens, sold over 300 000 copies in France and was translated in 25 countries. Along with Nicole Bacharan, he wrote L’Amour expliqué à nos enfants [Love Explained to Our Children] and a series of novels for young adults, Nemo, published with Editions Seuil.
Dominique Simonnet has contributed to several public initiatives intended to bring together the literary and scientific worlds. In the 1990’s, he was president of the Association of scientific journalists, a board member  of the Paris Museum « La Cité des sciences », and member of the Scientific Council of Chauvet Prehistoric Cave. He created the first monthly scientific and social interest magazine, L’Express Aujourd’hui, and has also contributed to the creation of the TV channel La Cinquième. He teaches journalism at Paris V University.
Dominique Simonnet is currently devoting himself fully to his writing and publishing activities. It is worth noting that he published Lettres à Maman [Letters to My Mother] by Ingrid, Melanie and Lorenzo Betancourt, a work that was published worldwide.

Lectures

The History of Love

There are not only love stories, there is also a history of love. How did western people love in the past? How was sexuality expressed? How were procreation, emotions and desire reconciled? 
From prehistory up to the present, Dominique Simonnet traces the evolution of private life and the long march of women (and men far behind) to throw off the religious and social straightjacket, and claim the right to love.
In the 21st century, while the three spheres – feelings, marriage, and sexuality – were dissociated, we dream, paradoxically of reuniting them, and our amorous behaviors still trail along the heritage, not only of our parents, but of the generations which preceded them. Inside of us lurk Don Juans and Iseults who are pulling the strings…

Némo en Amerique: “Knowledge Novels”
Based on the Némo series of adolescent novels, authors Nicole Bacharan and Dominique Simonnet wonder about the processes of writing and the role of fiction in education.
How such novels are created – the preparation by spotting and reporting, the collaboration between the writer and the researcher, writing as a duo.
At the forefront of this analysis is the example of Némo en Amérique [Némo in America] (the adventures of a young Frenchman in America), “the novel that makes you speak English” since the novel begins in French and ends in English.

The Most Beautiful Story in the World
How do the various scientific disciplines converge from now on to tell the same story of the world, of the Big Bang up until today?
It’s the same adventure, of the complexity which brings together the universe, life, man, like the stories of a long epic. Our body is composed of particles coming from the dawn of time: we are descended from the apes and bacteria, but also from stars and galaxies. The backdrop is the debate on science versus faith, darwinism versus creationism in France and in the United States.

Link to Dominique Simonnet’s website: www.droledeplanete.com

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