Sabrina Calvo was born on 19 September 1974 in
Marseille. She came out as trans in 2017 in the Mauvais Genre programme at the
Utopiales festival. She lives between Paris and Montreal. She has given talks and round tables at the Chroniques Digital Arts Biennial,
Mutek,
Sonic Protest, , les Utopiales, les Imaginales, les Intergalactiques and la Maison de la poésie, among others. In 2021 she spoke out in favour of reforming sexist and toxic behaviour in the world of fantasy literature publishing. Sabrina Calvo co-wrote the virtual reality drama
7 Lives, directed by
Jan Kounen.
7 Lives is part of the 2019 VR selection at the
Tribeca Film Festival.
Career in science fiction literature Her first novel, Délius, une chanson d'été, was published in 1997. The book refers in particular to the composer
Frederick Delius, and the title is taken from a song by
Kate Bush,
Delius (Song of Summer), which appeared on the album
Never for Ever, In 2004, based on a script by Sabrina Calvo, drew Télémaque, in which the author's dreamlike world’ is expressed. In 2006, the duo published
Akhénaton, co-written with Thomas Azuélos, tackling the subject of
transidentity. ActuaBD described the work as In 2015, Sabrina Calvo published
Sous la Colline, a
transfeminist urban fantasy novel exploring the intimate topography of Le Corbusier's
Cité Radieuse in Marseille and exploiting the myths of the city. Her counter-dystopian novel
Toxoplasma, featuring an anti-capitalist commune in Montreal and questioning
gender identities, won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in 2018.
Melmoth Furieux She continued her exploration of these themes with
Melmoth Furieux, an
uchronia published in 2021, featuring an update of the
Paris Commune in an alternative, policed and authoritarian present. In this novel, she takes her inspiration from
Eulalie Papavoine, a dressmaker and ambulance driver during the Paris Commune, for the book's main character and narrator named Fi. Fi is a
seamstress from
Belleville whose brother, a
Disney employee, set himself on fire during the inauguration of
Disneyland in 1992, and who joins a self-managed commune in Belleville to organise the revolt against the militia. The book's title is a reference to
Balzac's short story
Melmoth réconcilié and
Charles Robert Maturin's novel ''Melmoth ou l'Homme errant''.
Analysis of her works Her novels, often classified as science fiction, explore the geographical worlds of cities such as Marseille, Paris and Montreal, in a dystopian, dreamlike universe inspired by maps of places and revolutionary historical events from an
anti-capitalist,
anarchist and
transfeminist perspective, at the crossroads between the genres of
cyber punk and
urban fantasy. She is cited as one of the emblematic authors of
lesbian literature. Sabrina Calvo's novels and productions have won awards. Her novel
Wonderful won the 2002 .
Sous la Colline won the 2016 , and
Toxoplasma won the 2018 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire == Awards ==