Lionel Ruffel is a French literary scholar, publisher, and writer.   

He is the author of three essays on contemporary literature and culture:  Le Dénouement (Verdier, 2005), Volodine post-exotique (Cécile Defaut, 2007) Brouhaha, les mondes du contemporain (Verdier, 2016, Minnesota Press, 2017), and three hybrid books that combine memoir, literary essay, and political fable: Trompe-la-mort (Verdier, 2019), I Can’t Sleep (Sternberg Press, 2021), and Trois éveils (Corti, 2024). His next book, Auto-évaluations, will be published in January 2027. 

Since 2005, he runs the chaoïd series (which focuses on new voices and emerging literature) at Verdier publishing house where he’s also an associate publisher. 

He is a professor of comparative literature and creative writing at Paris 8 University, where he co-founded the master's program in creative writing in 2013 and has been co-director ever since. 

Lionel Ruffel has been a fellow in the Literary Arts Program at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, a Humboldt Fellow at the Freie Universität (Berlin), Levehulme Visiting Professor at the University of St Andrews, and visiting professor at Brown University, Princeton University, Ecal (Lausanne) and the Bern University of the Arts. 

His participation is made possible by the support of the University of Iowa’s Office of the Vice President for Research and The Graduate School ArTeC — Paris 8 University.