Tristan Garcia was born in 1981 in Toulouse. His début novel, Hate: A Romance (Faber and Faber, 2010), was a critical success and won the Prix de Flore in 2008. A philosopher by training, he completed his PhD and published Form and Object. A Treatise on Things (Edinburgh University Press, 2014) even as he continued to write fiction prolifically. 'Walking Backwards' is a story from his most recent book, 7.