ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian is not only the most widely read fantasy writer in France, she’s also the crown princess of Armenia. Sophie was inspired to start writing the Tara Duncan series after reading Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1987. Seventeen years later, in 2003, she published Tara Duncan in France and eventually in eighteen countries.
Born in southern France in 1961, Sophie was mainly raised by her grandparents, who spoiled her with candy and carefully chosen French classics: Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo along with Corneille and Molière. Possibly as a result, Sophie started writing stories at a very young age. Stuck in bed by a bout of appendicitis at age twelve, she picked up a pen and hasn’t put it down since. Before earning her living as a writer, she earned a master’s degree in diplomacy and strategy, and worked in advertising with Jacques Séguéla at the Publicis agency in Paris.
Sophie is the niece of author and director Francis Veber, who wrote the screenplay for the movies Dinner for Schmucks and Three Fugitives. She is also the granddaughter of Pierre Gilles Veber, who wrote the script of the original 1952 film Fanfan, la Tulipe, which was remade in 2003 with Penelope Cruz.
Tara Duncan has been adapted for television by Moonscoop– Taffy Entertainment (Casper, the Friendly Ghost; The Fantastic Four) in co-production with the Walt Disney corporation. Sophie says that a musical comedy to be called The Tara Duncan Show, with magic and special effects, is being developed by TF1, France’s premier television channel, with a budget of $12 million. When not writing, Sophie divides her time between her husband, her two daughters, and the medical organization Douleurs sans Frontières.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
William Rodarmor is a journalist, editor, and French literary translator. In addition to Tara Duncan, his young adult translations include The Book of Time trilogy by Guillaume Prévost (Scholastic, 2007–09), The Old Man Mad About Drawing by François Place (Godine, 2003), Catherine Certitude by Patrick Modiano and Jean-Jacques Sempé (Godine, 2001), Ultimate Game by Christian Lehmann (Godine, 2000), and The Last Giants by François Place (Godine, 1993). His translation of Tamata and the Alliance, by famed sailor Bernard Moitessier, won the 1996 Lewis Galantière Award from the American Translators Association.
William has traveled all over the world but has a special fondness for France, about which he edited and translated two anthologies in Whereabouts Press’s A Traveler’s Literary Companion series: French Feast (2011) and France (2008). He is especially of two things: sailing solo from Tahiti to Hawaii in 1971 and winning the cartoon caption contest in The New Yorker in 2010. William lives in Berkeley, California, and often travels to New York City.
THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It took seventeen years for my girl wizard Tara Duncan to see the light of day. I wrote Tara Duncan el les Sortceliers in 1987, the year my daughter Diane was born. That's the book you're reading as Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders, and the first in what is now a nine-volume series. But at the time, I couldn't get a single French publisher interested.
I waited, kept writing, and sometimes cried my eyes out. but my very sweet husband Philippe kept saying, "You have so much talent. You'll see; one of these days Tara is going to take off."
The day came thanks to a boy wizard with glasses and a scar on his forehead. Harry Potter's success had such an impact in France that when I sent out my manuscript for the nth time, three publishers suddenly wanted options on it.
Since then, the Tara Duncan books have been published in eighteen countries, adapted for television by Disney and Moonscoop, and sold some eight million copies. So the first person I want to thank is J.K. Rowling. After that I want to thank my wonderful and very patient husband Pilippe, who is a kind of Superman, and my two daughters, Diane and Marine. They're my first readers, and they complain loudly when I don't write fast enough. Darlings, I love you.
Warm thanks are also due to my French publishers, to my New York agent Jennifer Lyons, and incredible warrior, and especially to Skyhorse publisher Tony Lyons, who was willing to publish a Frenchwoman with a crazy imagination, and to his editor Julie Matysik. And to Lori and Oscar Hijuelos, my Pulitzer Prize-winning, loyal and great American friends who were first to believe in Tara and pushed very hard to help me be published in America. To William Hickman, another great American friend, and Daniel Edmundson: semper fidelis, boys! Thanks too to my translator William Rodarmor. He has sweated bullets finding ways to render my sometimes unlikely wordplay, and we're shared a lot of laughs. William, you're the best.
Finally, I want to thank my American fans who have agitated for years to have Tara Duncan published in the United States. I feel I've been very lucky, and the wait has been well worth it.
Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian
Paris, March 2012
Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders Page 41