During her childhood, with her three brothers and sisters, she moved from city to city, depending on the assignments her sub-prefect father received.
In 1976 she received her master's degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne, Paris, and in 1978 went on to complete an MA in philosophy and aesthetics at Université de Paris X - Nanterre, where she completed a doctorate in philosophy in 1981. During those years she studied with a teacher she admires, Emmanuel Levinas, and her work focused on the notion of asceticism in Christian mysticism.
While employed by the Ministry of Culture in Paris, where she remained between 1981 and 1986, she produced her first novel, Le Livre des Nuits (The Book of Nights) in 1985. It won six French Literary Prizes. The reception of the book established her as a significant new author.
From Paris, she moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where, from 1987 to 1993, she taught philosophy at the French School, and continued to write.[1]
In 1993, Sylvie Germain returned to France. She then lived between Paris and La Rochelle. But Prague continued to inspire her, a theme especially apparent in the novel Immensités, as well as the cultural life of the Czech Republic more generally, as reflected in her meditation on the life and work of Bohuslav Reynek. Since 1994 she has been involved only in literary activities.
In 1999, Sylvie Germain produced a biography focusing on the life of Etty Hillesum, the young Dutch Jewish woman who was murdered at Auschwitz in November 1943, leaving behind a journal. Germain explored her spiritual life and, a year later, she published several books in various genres: a travelogue, a spiritual text and a photo album.
In addition to novels, she has published essays on other artists (Vermeer: Patience et songe de lumière, 1993, for example), spiritual meditations (Les Echos du Silence) and a children's book (L'Encre du Poulpe). Most of her novels have been translated into English.
