Christian Jacq, born in Paris in 1947, was thirteen years old when he read a work that was to change the course of his life: The History of Ancient Egyptian Civilization, by Jacques Pirenne. Jacq was already an occasional poet, and this reading inspired him to start his first novel. In the following five years, he wrote eight novels, beginning a literary career that has resulted in over fifty books. With a doctorate in Egyptian Studies from the Sorbonne, Christian Jacq established his academic reputation in numerous scholarly articles and became a producer for one of France's leading radio stations. His first successful novel was Champollion the Egyptian, published in 1987. He and his wife have also founded and now head the Ramses Institute, which is dedicated to creating a photographic description of Egypt for the preservation of endangered archaeological sites.