Winner of the Prix de la Fondation Hachette in 1990, he is the author of three historical novels published by Grasset (including Les Exilés de Caucase, which won the Prix de l'Asie in 1996), of a narrative of the Lebanese civil war, L'Ecole de la guerre (Balland, 1999), and of an acclaimed biography of the man who persecuted Baudelaire and Flaubert: Le Procureur de l'Empire (Balland, 2001). He is considered to be "one of the most talented Francophone writers of his generation."