Kessel was born to a Jewish family in Villa Clara, Entre Ríos, Argentina, because of the constant journeys of his father, a Litvak physician.

From 1905 to 1908, Joseph Kessel lived the first years of his childhood in Orenburg, Russia, before the family moved to France in 1908.

Kessel wrote several novels and books that were later represented in the cinema, notably Belle de Jour (by Luis Buñuel in 1967) and L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows) (by Jean-Pierre Melville in 1969).

In 1943 he and his nephew Maurice Druon translated Anna Marly's song Chant des Partisans into French from its original Russian.

The jury counts or has counted among its members Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jean-Marie Drot, Michèle Kahn, Pierre Haski, Gilles Lapouge, Michel Le Bris, Érik Orsenna, Patrick Rambaud, Jean-Christophe Rufin, André Velter and Olivier Weber.