Jean Teulé lives in Marais with his companion, the French film actress Miou-Miou. An illustrator, filmmaker and television presenter, he is also the prize winning author of ten books including one based on the life of Verlaine. In researching that book he discovered that a group of nineteenth-century poets had founded a review called The Suicide Shop and this inspired his novel. He has also written biographies of Rimbaud and François Villon.