Alain de Botton
| Alain de Botton | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
20 December 1969 Zürich, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Writer, documentary maker |
| Nationality | Swiss and British |
| Education | Harrow School |
| Alma mater |
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge King's College London Harvard University (dropped-out) |
| Period | 1993–present |
| Website | |
| www |
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Alain de Botton, FRSL (/dəˈbɒtən/; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and vlogger. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published Essays in Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004) and The Architecture of Happiness (2006).
He co-founded the School of Life in 2008 and Living Architecture in 2009. In 2015, he was awarded "The Fellowship of Schopenhauer", an annual writers award from the Melbourne Writers Festival, for this work.
He was born in Zurich, the son of Jacqueline (née Burgauer) and Gilbert de Botton, who was born in Alexandria, Egypt and expelled (along with the rest of the Jewish community) under Nasser. Gilbert went to live and work in Switzerland, where he co-founded an investment firm, Global Asset Management; his family was estimated to have been worth £234 million in 1999. De Botton's Swiss-born mother was Ashkenazi, and his father was from a Sephardic Jewish family from the town of Boton in Castile and León.
De Botton's ancestors include Abraham de Boton. De Botton's paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer. He has one sister, Miel, and they received a secular upbringing. Alain spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up speaking French and German.
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