Isabelle Violet is an award winning French author; born and raised in Lyon, France. Her first book was published at the age of twenty-three, and then again at the age of twenty-five. The book which dominated her career was entitled La Couverte du Seu Vert, or The Quiet Woman; it was so popular that Ms. Violet wrote eight more books in this vein, entitled Meia’s Children; each time retaining the main characters’ nationalities, yet changing minor details to make them more interesting. The most recent of these eight novels, titled L’oise D’eon, or The Rainbow, is the seventeenth written for Isabelle Violet’s career.
Isabelle Violet grew up in a poor family, whose cultural roots were Jewish. Her parents, nevertheless, could see the beauty of their black-eyed beautiful child, so they sent her to live with an English married couple, Christopher and Sarah Chalmers, in whom she learned the language of French and English. By the age of seventeen she was fluent in both languages, and this was to prove a huge asset in her early career as a writer. She studied the works of Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe; among other classic writers. Her love of story and vivid imaginations soon led her to a vocation as a writer, and she wrote forty-two books between the ages of twenty-one and nineteen years. Her novels are distinguished by their realistic approach to fantasy, and the way in which they deal with issues of identity and nationality.
When it comes to nationality, there are actually many types of romantic heroines presented in French literature. The most common ones, according to researchers, are the Jacobites and the Royalists. The Jacobite hero is usually a French national, while the Royalist one is often from an Italian or Germanic background. The minority nationalities in the literature include the Balakers, the Gaullists and the Parisian bourgeoisie. Isabelle Violet’s own nationalities were Jewish, though she herself did not practice Judaism.