When Jefferson the hedgehog goes to his hairdresser’s, he’s shocked to discover the barber lying dead on the floor. Falsely accused of murder, Jefferson must go on the run with his best friend Gilbert the pig to uncover the real killers. Adventure, dark secrets and a most unlikely series of hair-raising events await Jefferson and his fellow animals as they travel into the Land of the Humans . . .
Jean-Claude Mourlevat was born in Ambert, Auvergne in 1952 in a farming family. He studied in Strasbourg, Toulouse, Bonn and Paris, and worked as a German teacher in college before becoming an actor. He performed as the clown character Guedoulde in a show that toured France and internationally and has also staged works by Brecht, Cocteau and Shakespeare. Jean-Claude Mourlevat turned to writing for children in the late 1990s and has since published numerous books for young readers and won several awards including the Prix des Incorruptibles and the Sorcières Prix.
He lives near Saint-Étienne, with his wife and their two children.
With over 60 titles to her name, Ros Schwartz has translated a wide range of Francophone fiction and non-fiction authors including Dominique Manotti (whose Lorraine Connection (Arcadia) won the 2008 International Dagger Award), and Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé, whose Kite (Seagull Books), was longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated Book Award in the USA. In 2010 she published a new translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (shortlisted for the Marsh children’s book award) and she is involved in translating a number of Maigret titles for Penguin Classics’ new Simenon edition.
Ros frequently publishes articles and gives workshops and talks on literary translation around the world. She is co-organiser of a 2014 translation summer school in association with City University, London. In 2009 she was made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature.