Jules Vallès was born in June 1832 in Puy-en-Velay. He had an unhappy childhood, which he recreated in his novel The Testament of a Joker - published by this same editorial - and from a young age he was aware of the social problems caused by what he himself called "the servitude of hunger".
As he recounted in Memories of a Poor Student, he frequented numerous revolutionary groups while studying law and began his work as a journalist, which would lead him to found, among others, the famous critical newspaper Le Cri du Peuple. Imprisoned on several occasions for his chronicles and articles, which he would later collect in different books, he ran as a candidate for the legislative elections.
In 1871, in the middle of the Franco-Prussian war, the popular insurrection took place in the streets of Paris: Vallès would become one of its leaders and, therefore, would be sentenced to death. Exiled in London, he was able to return to France thanks to an amnesty. He died in 1885, the victim of diabetes.
Until now, he was known above all for the trilogy starring his alter ego Jacques Vingtras and composed by El niño, El bachiller and El insurrecto, but Jules Vallès wrote several more novels, all of them extraordinary. They will be published by Periférica over the next few years.