"Mille vies, un destin" (A Thousand Lives, One Destiny), this Kedger has published the first complete biography of Simone Veil

Amandine is responsible for the pedagogical engineering of training courses at Marsail. She’s also been a professor at KEDGE Business School for more than 10 years and, before that, she taught at the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence. She’s never stopped seeking to learn and discover new things, and her professional career can easily be described as eclectic.

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INTERVIEW - Amandine Deslandes, author of the biography of Simone Veil, "Mille vies, un destin" (A Thousand Lives, One Destiny), 

1. Hello Amandine. To begin, tell us about your educational and career background, and your time while attending KEDGE, and working there

I have a bachelor in business and management. I started at KEDGE after I got an undergraduate degree in Spanish. It was where I learned all the tools to become a good generalist in business management. For me, that was the best way to learn how an SME functions. It’s without a doubt that the basis of my career. Later on, I came back to KEDGE as a professor, thanks to Alexandra Couston, who was a key figure while I was there. I had a chance to find out what it was like to be on the other side of the teacher’s podium and to pass on my knowledge in turn. It’s very stimulating.

AMANDINE DESLANDES - LINKEDIN

2. Tell us about "Mille Vies, Un Destin" - the biography you’ve written about Simone Veil and that has just been published. How much time did it take you, and what pushed you to write about her?

It was pretty much a series of circumstances! On the entrepreneur side of my life, I met the Director of the City Éditions collection, who knew my associate Christopher Pratt. From there, we conversed for several months and finally decided on doing a biography of Simone Veil. She appealed to me because I found her to be an iconic person and because a film about her life was scheduled to be released in Spring 2021. The agreement was reached in August 2020 and the manuscript was due on 15 November. A real challenge for a first work! I had several weekends where I was studying hard (laughs).

3. What would you say to a KEDGE graduate or student to get them to read this biography?

I’d tell them what readers have regularly told me since it came out: “It reads like a novel”! I wanted to tell the story of her life, which was intrinsically romantic, as well. I’d also say that it’s important to know her story because it teaches us about history in a broad sense, the road we’ve travelled on to get here, and how far we still have to go. Shoah, the law that deals with the voluntary termination of a pregnancy, the construction of Europe, and the defence of rights of men and women… so many subjects that are still resoundingly relevant today!

[Credit: Yohan Brandt]

4. Where and how can Alumni get the book?

The book can be ordered at any bookseller and can also be ordered online, especially through Place des Libraires, a collective of independent bookshops. All the information can be found on my website. www.amandinedeslandes.fr. For an autographed copy, all you have to do is to send your contact details to me at: contact@amandinedeslandes.fr. I hope to be able to have a book signing on the campus in a few weeks if the situation allows it!

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