Benoît Peeters

Who is Benoît Peeters?

Benoît Peeters is a comics writer, novelist, and critic. After a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne, he prepared his Master’s at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales under the direction of Roland Barthes. He holds a habilitation à diriger les recherches, i.e. a supplementary PhD enabling him to supervise the work of PhD candidates,.

He published his first novel, Omnibus, by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1976, followed by his second, La Bibliothèque de Villers, Robert Laffont, 1980. Since then, he has published over sixty works on a wide variety of subjects.

His best-known work is Les Cités Obscures, an imaginary world which mingles a Borgesian metaphysical surrealism with the detailed architectural vistas of the series' artist, François Schuiten. The series began with Les Murailles de Samaris in 1983 and is still continuing.

He has also worked with Frédéric Boilet on a series of comic albums, including Love Hotel, Tokyo est mon jardin, and Demi-tour, and has collaborated on a series of photographic works with Marie-Françoise Plissart.

He has written a number of books about the comics medium as well, including Le monde d'Hergé, published in English as Tintin and the World of Hergé, a biography of Hergé, "Hergé, son of Tintin", a study of comics pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer, and theoretical works such as Lire la bande dessinée