Gaël Octavia
Gaël Octavia (29 December 1977 in Fort-de-France (Martinique), is a French writer and playwright. She is also a film director and painter. Gaël Octavia grew up on a council estate in Schœlcher, where she was greatly influenced by her parents. Her mother would tell the story of Octavia's grandmother, who fell in love with a married man. When he died, she was left alone to raise her children, destitute and excluded. This family story captivated Gaël Octavia, who retold it in Ma Parole. After studying at the Lycée Victor-Schœlcher, she obtained her baccalaureate in 1995 and left Martinique to settle in Paris to study. She studied at the lycée Fénelon in Paris and then at a prestigious engineering school. After graduating with a degree in engineering, she worked in telecommunications. In 2002, she started writing for Tangente, a popular mathematics magazine. She also became head of communications for Fondation Sciences Mathématiques de Paris. Gaël Octavia's abilities blend the mathematical and the artistic. Her favourite means of expression are painting, film making, and above all, literary writing. While being influenced by Martinique, Gaël Octavia's writing deals with broad issues: the family, the status of women, social exclusion and migration. Cultural organisations working to promote Caribbean theatre recognised Octavia's work early on. In 2003, actor Greg Germain chose her first play, Le Voyage, for a reading in his theatre at the Chapelle du Verbe Incarné in Avignon. The following year, Congre et homard, another play, was selected by the reading committee of Textes en Paroles, an association based in Guadeloupe working to promote contemporary Caribbean theatrical writing. In 2005, Moisson d'avril, a portrait of a power-seeking but conflicted politician, was broadcast on RFO Martinique under the title "Ça y est!". Gaël Octavia's plays have been staged in France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, across the West Indies and in the United States. In 2009, her first book, Le Voyage, was published by the New York publisher RivartiCollection.
