Monique Felix a grandi entre le village alpin de Bourg-Saint-Pierre et le Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, à la frontière italo-suisse. À 15 ans, elle quitte le cocon familial pour s'établir à Lausanne, afin d'y étudier le graphisme à l'école cantonale d'art.
En 1979 lors de la foire du livre de Bologne son premier projet d’album fut remarqué par l'illustrateur et éditeur Etienne Delessert et publié en 1981 par les Editions Tournesol- Gallimard qu’il dirigeait. Cette rencontre marque son entrée en littérature pour la jeunesse.
Ce premier album, "L'histoire d'une petite souris enfermée dans un livre" a remporté de nombreux prix, dont une Pomme d'Or à la Biennale de Bratislava.
Depuis, la petite souris facétieuse a vécu huit nouvelles aventures publiées par The Creative Company aux États-Unis, traduites en 17 langues et vendues à plus de 3 millions d'exemplaires.
Puisant son inspiration dans la nature, la faune et la flore au fil de saisons, elle offre à ses lecteurs une poésie salvatrice et un regard exceptionnel sur le vivant.
Ses œuvres ne sont pas simplement des illustrations, elles sont des portes ouvertes vers l’évasion et le rêve. Son héroïne, la petite souris dévoreuse de pages, incarne le pouvoir infini de l'imagination.
Aujourd'hui, Monique Felix a illustré une cinquantaine d’albums, principalement publiés aux États-Unis par The Creative Company et diffusés dans le monde entier.
Elle vit actuellement près de Lausanne dans le canton de Vaud en Suisse.
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EXTRACT FROM RICOCHET INTERVIEW
Apart from your approach as a children's author or illustrator, what would you dream of being?
MF: To be what I am but much better, that is to say as a perfect mother, as an extraordinarily inspired artist and... as an opera singer.
CORNELIA , Editions Paloma
What did you fear as a child?
MF: May the devil take me.
MF: In my mountain village, with strong religious beliefs, the devil was almost stronger than the Good Lord. He lived at the bottom of the deep gorges and dragged everyone who was not nice into the eddies of the torrent.
Do you ever come into contact with imaginary beings?
MF: Yes, I live and work with it.
HANSEL AND GRETEL , Editions Grasset
What would you do or say to an ogre if you happened to come across one?
MF: I will ask him to invite me to his table.
What have you kept from childhood?
MF: My stuffed dog, from the top of the shelf, he watches me. Over time, he lost a few hairs and I lost a few feathers.
What do you think makes a book sell?
MF: If I knew...
If you had the chance to start over, what would you change?
MF: I start again every day!
As a child, what kind of reader were you?
MF: The kind of reader, lawbreaker, reading by the light of a flashlight in my cabin under the sheets when curfew had already sounded a long time ago.
What do you feel powerless about?
MF: Lots of things, for example the Wall Street stock market, a football match, an algebra equation.
The books in your production that you are particularly proud of or that leave you with a special memory?
MF: Each of the books has been inhabited, sometimes for a long time and I have the impression of having really experienced these atmospheres.....
.....I had the chance to travel to India with Kipling…
RITTI-TIKKI-TAVI, Rudyard Kipling, Creative Editions
.....fishing on a frozen lake in Alaska...
HUNDERT OF FISH, Ellen Wood, Creative Editions
..... to dance with a bear in the square of a medieval village...
BEAR DANCE, Jan Wahl, Creative Editions.
...to sleep in the arms of a shrew at the bottom of its burrow.
LE MOUVEMENT, Christophe Gallaz, Gallimard-Tournesol
MF: My children and my favorites are often part of the trip.
ENCHANTED SLED , Jan Wahl-Creative Editions.
Where do you write? What is the place that inspires you the most?
MF: My workshop in the middle of the fields with the rustling of the grass when the fox sneaks in, the blackbird spies on me through the foliage and the spider prepares to sneakily attack me.
How did your first book come about?
MF: Quite naturally by drying in front of a blank page. A mouse got in there, I made myself as discreet as possible, I observed its distress and I helped it find a way to escape from this prison.
- A book for young people that had an impact on you when you were little?
MF: Gustave Doré's illustrations moved me, I remember Perrault's tales discovered in the library, alongside the wise stories of the Countess of Ségur and the adventures of Bécassine.
What are your “favorite” books, the “must-haves” in children’s literature?
MF: How Wang-Fô was saved. short story by Marguerite Yourcenar
What would you like people to remember about you?
MF: Just a memory, the best possible.