His father was a polytechnicien who became an officer of the colonial army, reaching the rank of general at retirement and his mother, a housewife, was a self-taught reader.

His father's love for poetry gave him a taste for books that he quickly devoured in the family library or at school[2] After studying in Nice he became a teacher.

[3] His writing style can be humorous and imaginative as in "La Saga Malaussène", or scholarly, as exemplified by the essay "Comme un roman."

In 1990 Pennac won the "Prix du Livre Inter" for La petite marchande de prose.

His 1984 novel L'œil du loup was translated into English as Eye of the Wolf by Sarah Adams – later known as Sarah Ardizzone[4] – and published by Walker Books in 2002; Adams won the biennial British Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation in 2005 for that work.