Alain de Botton (; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and philosopher. 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. Early life and family De Botton was born in Zürich, the son of Jacqueline (née Burgauer) and Gilbert de Botton. Gilbert was born in Alexandria, Egypt, but after being expelled under Nasser, he went to live and work in Switzerland, where he co-founded an investment firm, Global Asset Management; his family was estimated to have been worth £234 million in 1999. Alain de Botton's Swiss-born mother was Ashkenazi, and his father was from a Sephardic Jewish family from the town of Boton in Castile and León. De Botton's ancestors include Abraham de Boton. De Botton's paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer, a Jewish-Egyptian journalist who spied for Israel and died in Jerusalem. He has one sister, Miel, and they received a secular upbringing. Alain spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up speaking French and German. Education De Botton attended the Dragon School where English became his primary language. He was later sent to board and study at Harrow School, a public school in England. He has often described his childhood as that of a shy child living in boarding schools. De Botton read History at University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Gonville and Caius College, graduating with a double starred first. He then completed an MPhil in Philosophy at King's College, London (1991–1992), and began studying for a PhD in French philosophy at Harvard University. However, he gave up his research to write books for the general public. Writing Fiction In his first novel, Essays in Love (titled On Love in the U.S.), published in 1993, de Botton deals with the process of falling in and out of love. In 2010, Essays in Love was adapted to film by director Julian Kemp for the romantic comedy My Last Five Girlfriends. De Botton wrote a