Born and brought up in Belfast, Ireland, I obtained my BA joint Honours in French and English from Queen's University Belfast in 1998 before moving to Paris where I enrolled at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 to take the Agrégation in 2001. This was followed by a DEA (MPhil) in 2002, a PhD in 2007, and my Habilitation in 2014. I have been working at the Université de Lille SHS since 2009, first as a Senior Lecturer and, since 2016, as a Professor of Postcolonial literature. I am also currently a Junior Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France