Jean-Christophe Rufin

French doctor, human right activist and novelist. As a doctor, he is one of the pioneers of humanitarian movement "without borders," for which he has led numerous missions in eastern Africa and Latin America. A former president of the non-governmental organization Action Against Hunger. He was Ambassador of France in Senegal from 2007 to June 2010.

He led his first humanitarian mission in Eritrea, where he met Azeb, who became his second wife.

In 2003, Rufin was commissioned by French to write an in-depth report on the upsurge of anti-Semitism in France. The "Rufin report" was presented on 19 October 2004.

In 2001 his historical novel Brazil Red (French: Rouge Brésil) won the Goncourt Prize. The novel recounts the unsuccessful French attempt to conquer Brazil in the 16th century, against a background of wars of religion and a rite-of-passage discovery of the charms and secrets of the Amerindian world.