Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau are bestselling authors of books on language and culture. Partners in life and writing, the couple lives in Montreal, Canada with their twin daughters.

Nadeau and Barlow’ first book, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, explains how the French think and organize themselves – from their penchant for centralization, to their love of street protests and of 5-course meals. The book has sold 200 000 copies to date in 5 languages. It is popular among Francophiles in North America, Europe and Asia and used in university courses on French culture in the U.S.

Nadeau and Barlow’s second book, The Story of French (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), is a popular history of the French language that explains how French evolved and became a global language, and how French speakers developed a unique relationship with their language. The New York Times praised The Story of French as “a highly accessible history of the French language.” The Montreal Gazette called it “a mind-altering experience.” Translated into French and Japanese, The Story of French won the 2007 Mavis Gallant Award for Nonfiction.

Nadeau and Barlow have spoken about France and the French language at 80 conferences and events in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Japan. They have written about France and French for newspapers and magazines in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, including The New York Times, L’Express and the Courier international.

Jean-Benoît Nadeau grew up just speaking French in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Julie Barlow grew up just speaking English in Lancaster, Ontario. They met at McGill University in 1987 and learned each other’s languages (Nadeau also got a BA in History and Political Science while he was there, and Barlow a B.A. in Political Science and a M.A. in English Literature).

Nadeau and Barlow started their writing careers as journalists. They are contributors to the Quebec public affairs magazine L’actualité, and together have won 40 journalism and literary prizes, including National Magazine Awards of Canada.

The couple lived in France from 1999-2001 when Nadeau was a fellow of the Institute for Current World Affairs. In 2010, they lived in Phoenix, Arizona where Barlow was a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar at Arizona State University. The couple has also lived in Toronto, Canada and travelled in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand.

The couple expanded their multilingual living experiment in 2006 when they adopted Creole-speaking twins from Haiti. They now speak English and French interchangeably at home. Nadeau and Barlow have also learned Spanish while Nadeau can make himself understood in German. Barlow is presently trying to get her head around Arabic.