Chloé Delaume (born 1973 in Paris) is a French award-winning novelist, performer, musician, and occasional singer.
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Born Nathalie Dalain in Paris, 1973, Chloé Delaume spent her childhood in Beirut. In 1983 a tragic episode both changed the course of her life and marked her body of work: at ten years old, she witnessed her father murder her mother, then kill himself. She then lived amongst her grandparents, her uncle and aunt.
Delaume enrolled at the Université de Paris X to become a teacher, just like her mother did. Seemingly disappointed by the university's system, Delaume decided to write on her own while getting jobs as a waitress at hostess bars, which prompted her to write her first published novel for Farrago/Léo Scheer editions: Les Mouflettes d'Atropos. She then collaborated under her birth name on the literary magazine Le matricule des anges.
Chloé Delaume is her nom de plume: the name Chloé hails from the heroine of the novel L'Écume des jours by Boris Vian and her last name, Delaume, comes from Antonin Artaud's writings/play L'Arve et l'Aume.
Chloé Delaume has written various novels in which she uses an original form of poetic research. Apart from writing novels, she composes and collaborates lyrics to Julien Locquet's musical project Dorine_Muraille. These collaborations have also spurred multimedia performances.
Le Cri du sablier, won the Prix Décembre in 2001.
Autofiction, technology, biopower, gameplay, literary activism and the struggle against psychosis are some of the prevalent motifs throughout her body of work.