Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton

De Botton in 2011
Born (1969-12-20) 20 December 1969
Zürich, Switzerland
OccupationWriter, speaker
Nationality
  • Swiss
  • British
Alma materGonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA)
King's College London (MPhil)
Harvard University
Period1993–present
Website
alaindebotton.com

Alain de Botton FRSL (/dəˈbɒtən/; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and public speaker. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published Essays in Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004), and The Architecture of Happiness (2006).

He co-founded The School of Life in 2008 and Living Architecture in 2009. In 2015, he was awarded "The Fellowship of Schopenhauer", an annual writers' award from the Melbourne Writers Festival, for that work.