Born in 1972 and raised in Canada, René has lived in Paris since 1999. He has published two novels: Puppet Dancers (2014) and The Click Shortcuts (2015). He is hard at work on two more novels. He also writes 800-word short stories for live events in Paris. He writes in the magical punk style and likes to invent names and cultures.

 

The Click Shortcuts can be summarized as a novel about the development of a phonetic alphabet in a continent that has none. The narrative unfolds in the fictional country of Geremoth, which uses the same writing system as all the other countries on the continent. When mobile phones appear though, Geremoth’s youth start communicating with an alternative system, a radical system where symbols represent sounds. Behind the rise of the system are its fragile-brained inventor Bejia, Anossia who needs it to remain relevant as a student-tutor, Berbi the memorization champion who’ll use it to remember, and Geluko the scientist who needs a source of revenue to promote Besa, the genetically designed crop plant that assaults other crop plants.