His grandmother was from Bessarabia. Journalist, author, and television per- sonality, Olivier Barrot has played a prominent role in French cultural life. Following his role as a producer at Gaumont and TF1, Barrot wrote for Le Monde and Canal+. He later became an artistic advisor for the Cannes Film Festival. Along with Thierry Taittinger, he then founded SENSO Magazine of words and meaning. Since 1991 he has been the producer and host of the daily literary program Un Livre, Un Jour on France 3and TV5 television, where he directs a series ofpublic discussions with actors of the Comédie Française. Since 2007, Olivier Barrot has been hosting French Literature in the Making series at New York University since 2007 and is also the author of multiple booksincluding: Ciné Club (2010), La Revueblanche, Le Fils perdu (2012), and Un livre un jour, un livre toujours (2014). Olivier Barrot intro- duced Memories (Les Souvenirs) at FFC 2015. Aside from United States (Gallimard, 2017), Barrot's most recently published books include Mitteleuropa, Un livre un jour, un livre toujours, La Revue blanche, Le Fils perdu, Ciné Club, and L'Ami posthume. He was the artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 and his latest book on French cinema is Noir et Blanc. He has written many other books on cinema, the press, travel, English and American litera- ture and the theatre.