I was born in Argentina in 1970, to a father of French, English, and American descent of Irish origin, and to a mother of unknown origin—perhaps Romanian, perhaps Moldovan, from Bessarabia, or Russian…

My mother’s parents were Samuel Zuik and Adela Muchnik. He built a career in the army, purchasing weapons for Argentina in Germany, and Adela was a piano teacher and painter.

On my father’s side, my grandfather, Pierre François Hovelaque, son of Josephine Bell Higgins and Emile Lucien Hovelaque, married a Breton woman—my grandmother, Lucie Le Meur—who had been Emile’s nurse. He was an official of the World Health Organization and lived and died in Geneva, Switzerland.

My father settled in Argentina at the age of 19, on a farm in the province of Buenos Aires (Copetonas, Partido de Tres Arroyos), where he worked as a farmer and cattle rancher. My mother is a psychologist and a recycling artist.

My life was marked by the loss of my little sister, Ingrid Lorelei, and six months later by the death of my father, Hervé Jean Ulrich. At the age of eight I became fatherless and grew up with my mother in the city of Buenos Aires, at 938 Callao Street, 4th floor, across from Rodríguez Peña Square.

I attended kindergarten and preschool at Lange Ley School. For primary school, I went to the public school Juan José Castelli. I keep friends from my early childhood. For secondary school, I attended Cangallo Schule through fourth year, then transferred to Avellaneda School for a few months, and later to another institution, eventually receiving my diploma from Instituto Cardozo.

I began playing rugby at the Central Buenos Aires Club and grew up as an urban child. My first job was with one of my mother’s partners, who sold livestock on television. At sixteen, I began working with a commercial lawyer who handled bankruptcies and insolvency proceedings. I came to know—and walk through—the financial district of Buenos Aires and its courts of injustice. I fell in love for the first time with Cecilia Frash. At eighteen, I began studying law but left before completing the basic cycle.

At eighteen, I returned to agricultural matters, starting at a fiscal revaluation firm, Complet-Agro, and enrolled at the Argentine University of Enterprise, where I studied agricultural administration and economics. Four years later, I obtained my first university degree: a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Administration.

At twenty-two, I married Sandra Mongenstern, and we traveled to several countries: the United States, Nepal, Thailand, China, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and the Dominican Republic, in addition to traveling within Argentina, visiting the provinces of Entre Ríos and Córdoba, and frequently going to the countryside in Buenos Aires province.

Sandra was a woman six years older than I, with whom I entered into a different social universe—hers. At twenty-five, I began working with her father in hospital administration and completed my first master’s degree at the Argentine Catholic University, finishing two years later with a Master’s in Health Administration.

At twenty-seven, I separated and became somewhat of a Don Juan until I reunited with Bettina Mobillo—who had briefly been my girlfriend when I was fifteen. I spent about five years with her.

Later, I traveled to Machu Picchu, Peru, and on the return flight I met Soledad Quinterno, with whom I had a son, Jean Gaspard. He was born with a congenital illness—osteopetrosis—and passed away at eight months old during an attempted bone marrow transplant.

By then, I had begun my application for Canadian residency about a year earlier. Once it was granted, I moved to Montreal, Quebec, at the age of thirty-four. I have remained here since.

I began a PhD in Public Health and pursued it for five years. During that time, I met Catherine Boileau, who is the mother of my two sons, Matisse and Víctor Hervé.

I lived with her for about fifteen years, and we separated in 2022. I left my married life and began a new chapter of my existence as an author.