Alain de Botton Biography

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in December 1969 and educated in Switzerland and England. His family originates from the Spanish peninsula, from the small Castilian town of Boton (now vanished). They left in 1492, along with the rest of the Sephardic Jewish community, and eventually settled in Alexandria, Egypt, where de Botton's father was born.

He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' He's written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education.

His work consists of Essays in Love (1993), Kiss and Tell (1995), How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), The Art of Travel (2002), Status Anxiety (2004), A Week at the Airport (2009), How to Think More About Sex (2012), Art as Therapy (2013), and The News: A User's Manual (2014).

Botton lives in London.

Alain de Botton's website

This bio was last updated on 01/01/2015. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.