Marc Villard was born in 1947 in Versailles, France. His father was a lathe operator in an aeroplane factory and his mother a secretary. After a brief stay in Reims at the age of ten, the family settled in the west suburbs of Paris. In 1957 he discovered rock'n'roll through a young neighbour. A little later he became passionately interested in football and the American beat poets. Graduating from the Estienne School, he did his military service in Germany and when he returned he left the family home... In 1968 Marc Villard wrote his first poems and several collections were published up to the end of the 70's; then he turned to short stories and screenplays. Marc Villard works for a perfume company and lives in Paris with his wife and three children.
The short story, a domain in which Marc Villard excels, plays an important part in his writing. This is how he defines it: “The short story: it means what it says. Make it short. Adopt an appropriate narrative style; don't drag up old recipes for novels in a reduced form. But there is freedom too: three lines, one page, three pages, ten pages. Get rid of the sacrosanct plot and keep just the froth and parings of existence. Fulguration: a camera flash. Or rather a Polaroid. Live, sparkle and die. The short story is life. The novel is the idea we have about life: a long story. Actually we are already burnt out right from the start. How does it function, they ask? It doesn't function, of course, it pours out its lifeblood all at once with its pared down dialogues and its meagre narrative. Zen practice. The marker pen remains the ideal instrument to use for this exercise, but some prefer a Macintosh. I can see in it a call from the deep. As for subject matter, the details of daily life, as always, stir that up. Keep in mind that writing is a drama. So the short story will only reconstitute the downs in life, madness, pain, loss, evil. Those who bathe in the warmth of human happiness have no need of it; this beautiful, shameful lady is not for them.”
