Rouja Lazarova was born in Sofia in 1968 and immigrated to Paris in 1991. She first studied philology in college in Sofia, then came to Paris to study political science, including at the prestigious Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. After spending three years in institutional and political public relations, Lazarova became a freelance journalist, working as Paris-based correspondent for the BBC's Bulgarian section. She has held this post for the last six years and specializes in social issues. Lazarova first published short stories in Bulgarian from 1987 to 1991, for which she won a Bulgarian "Young Prose" award in 1990. Mausolée is her fourth novel in French. It was preceded by Sur le bout de la langue (00h00, 1998), Coeurs croisés (Flammarion, 2000) and Frein (Balland, 2004). She has also published two short stories in French and written a play, which was performed at the Festival de la Correspondance in Grignan.