Happy are the Happy

YASMINA REZA is a French playwright and novelist, based in Paris, whose works have all been multi-award-winning, critical and popular international successes. Her plays, Conversations After a Burial, Art, The Unexpected Man, Life x 3 and God of Carnage, have been produced worldwide and translated into thirty-five languages. Her novels include Hammerklavier, Desolation, Adam Haberberg and Dawn, Dusk or Night. Her screenplay, Lulu Kreutz’s Picnic, was made into a film directed by Didier Martiny. Sarah Ardizzone is an award-winning translator of French-speaking voices. Her collaborations with Gaël Faye include Small Country (Petit Pays), producing a bilingual musical performance version for the Edinburgh International Book Festival and translating lyrics for Gaël's platinum album Lundi Méchant. To research Jacaranda, she travelled across Rwanda with Gaël and the creators of the bande dessinée adaptations of his novels, Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia. She was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2022, and made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.

"Fast becoming the hit of the summer... At times it's darkly comic, but there's loss and heartbreak, too" -- Laurel Ives Style, Sunday Times "Reza has a sketch artist's ability to create pictures and atmosphere with a few careful strokes... Bittersweet, yet beautiful to read" Daily Mail "She has a superpower for zeroing in on each beat of an argument, each buried emotion... Moments of simple joy stand out from the vividly awkward domestic tussles that surround them" The Times "Sharply observant wit...a rather particular delight...the mistress of subtle detail" -- Louise Jury Independent "Happy are the Happy is a spiky, brilliantly observed novel about marriage, infidelity, dreams and disillusion" Stella Magazine, Sunday Telegraph