René Belletto

René Belletto was born on 11 September 1945 in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, France. He grew up in the Spanish quarter of Villeurbanne, next to Lyon. His mother came from Almería in Andalusia, and ActuaLitté reports that his parents had Spanish and Italian-French origins. Their names have not been made public. Lyon, the city of his childhood, became the main setting of his most famous novels, and press tributes after his death stressed his deep and lasting attachment to it.

He studied literature (lettres) at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon and then at university. He went on to work as a teacher of letters. He was also a keen guitarist and for a time taught the instrument.

Belletto began as a film critic, writing for the Lyon weekly Lyon Poche from 1976 to 1982 under the pseudonym François Labret. His first book, the fantastic short story collection Le Temps mort (1974), won the Prix Jean-Ray. His early prose works, Les Traîtres Mots ou Sept aventures de Thomas Nylkan (1976), Livre d'histoire (1978) and Film noir (1980), were experimental, and he published them with the editor Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens, who remained his editor for life.

In 1981 he changed register with Le Revenant, the first novel of his Lyon trilogy, which won the Prix de l'été VSD Radio Monte-Carlo. Sur la terre comme au ciel (1982) won the Grand prix de littérature policière in 1983 and was filmed by Michel Deville as Péril en la demeure (1985). L'Enfer (1986) won the Prix du Livre Inter, the Prix Femina and the Prix Gutenberg for suspense.

La Machine (1990), about a psychiatrist who swaps minds with a killer, was filmed by François Dupeyron in 1994. He wrote the Intrigues episode L'Œil du mort (1985) and the first two episodes of the France 2 crime series Le Lyonnais (1990), created by Cyril Collard, then wrote a second noir trilogy: Régis Mille l'éventreur (1996), Ville de la peur (1997) and Créature (2000). Later books include Mourir (2002), Petit traité de la vie et de la mort (2003), Coda (2005), Hors la loi (2010), Le Livre (2014), Être (2018) and Jean-Sébastien Bach (2023). In total P.O.L published 22 of his books, and he revised several of his novels for new editions between 2006 and 2009.

Belletto lived in Paris from 1978 while keeping Lyon as the imaginative centre of his work. He was a guitarist and a passionate music lover, especially devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach, and was also known for his near obsession with sound and high fidelity equipment, an interest his characters share. Details of any spouse or children have not been made public.

His work returns again and again to fear of living, the anguish of madness, identity, chance, solitude and death. Reviewing L'Enfer in 1986, Le Monde wrote that for Belletto only poetry could stand against evil. ActuaLitté wrote that for him Bach's art was a struggle for life. He gave essay form to these preoccupations in Petit traité de la vie et de la mort (2003).

Belletto is remembered as a master of French crime and fantastic fiction who brought literary ambition to the genre, and as the novelist who turned Lyon into a city of noir. Two of his novels became notable films, Péril en la demeure (1985) and La Machine (1994). L'Enfer, his best known book, was widely translated. After his death critics and readers on social media recommended his Lyon novels as addictive and singular, and the critic Arnaud Viviant credited him with making him understand Lyon through fiction.

Prix Jean-Ray (1974) for Le Temps mort. Prix de l'été VSD Radio Monte-Carlo (1981) for Le Revenant. Grand prix de littérature policière (1983) for Sur la terre comme au ciel. Prix du Livre Inter (1986), Prix Femina (1986) and Prix Gutenberg for best suspense (1986) for L'Enfer. In January 2011 the Rhône-Alpes region honoured Le Revenant with its prize for film adaptation.

Novels: Livre d'histoire (1978), Film noir (1980), Le Revenant (1981), Sur la terre comme au ciel (1982), L'Enfer (1986), La Machine (1990), Régis Mille l'éventreur (1996), Ville de la peur (1997), Créature (2000), Mourir (2002), Coda (2005), Hors la loi (2010), Le Livre (2014), Être (2018). Short stories: Le Temps mort (1974), reissued as L'Homme de main et autres nouvelles (1994). Other: Les Traîtres Mots (1976), Loin de Lyon (1986), Remarques (1991), Les Grandes Espérances de Charles Dickens (1994), Histoire d'une vie (1998), Petit traité de la vie et de la mort (2003), Somme toute (2011), Jean-Sébastien Bach (2023). Translation: Tim Burton, La Triste Fin du petit enfant huître (1998). Screen: Intrigues, L'Œil du mort (1985); Le Lyonnais, episodes 1 and 2 (1990). Adaptations: Péril en la demeure (Michel Deville, 1985); La Machine (François Dupeyron, 1994).

René Belletto died on Sunday 25 October 2026, aged 81. His publisher P.O.L announced the death to Agence France-Presse on Monday 26 October 2026, expressing its very great sadness. The cause of death and the place of death have not been made public, and no funeral details had been published at the time of writing.