Stephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing. His first novel, A Year in the Merde, became a word-of-month hit in 2004, and is now published all over the world. Since then he has published three more bestselling Merde novels, as well as Talk to the Snail, an indispensable guide to understanding the French. Research for Stephen's novels has taken him all over France and America. For 1000 Years of Annoying the French, he breathed the chill air of ruined castles and deserted battlefields, leafed through dusty chronicles, brushed up on the medieval French he studied at university and generally lost himself in the mists of history. He has now returned to present-day Paris, and is doing his best to live the Entente Cordiale.