He was a Professor of Literature in France for 3 years before moving to Italy to teach French literature for 2 years at the University of Catania in Sicily and afterwards at Naples Eastern University.
Following a 2 years residence at the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, he returned to Palermo, Sicily as a cultural attaché at the French Embassy.
[1] His novels Tous les soleils and Angelica are both set in Sicily.
Tous les soleils won the Prix Femina in 1984[2] and Angelica the Albert Camus Prize in 1988.
In 1983 he won the Fénéon Prize for his earlier novel Au pays des nains