Caroline Vermalle
Caroline Vermalle was born in France in 1973 to a family whose French roots go back at least as far as the 16th century. Yet, she is a vegetarian who can’t cook, doesn’t drink, finds berets itchy and unpractical and would rather eat yesterday’s snails than jump a queue.
After graduating from film school in Paris, she became a television documentary producer for the BBC in London and travelled the world, at speed and off the beaten tracks, in search of good stories. In 2008, then on maternity leave, she penned her first novel « George’s Grand Tour », whose international success allowed her to quit her job and indulge in her three passions : books, interior design and travel - slowly this time.
After writing 7 novels in different genres and different languages, going on a world tour with her family and building a wooden house in a forest, Caroline now lives between a small seaside town in Vendée (France) and a small seaside town in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) with her son, a black cat and her husband, South African architect-turned-author Ryan von Ruben.
“Ihre Freundschaft atmete die Luft der großen, weiten Welt. Sie würden sehen, ob sie dieser Herausforderung gewachsen war.”
“Es waren die Stimmen seines Gartenstuhls, der Polsterauflagen und der Wettervorhersage, die Stimmen des Kräutertees und seiner Tomatenpflanzen, die Stimmen all dieser vertrauten Dinge und die des Hauses selbst. Sie sangen ihm die süße Melodie des Alltäglichen und stimmten den vertrauten Refrain von der Sinnlosigkeit von Veränderungen an”