Wajdi Mouawad spent his childhood in Lebanon, his adolescence in France, his young adult years in Quebec, and now lives in France. A 1991 graduate of Canada's National School of Dramatic Arts, he has adapted and directed contemporary and classic plays as well as his own. He was artistic director of the Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montreal from 2000 to 2004 and of the Théâtre français du Centre National des Arts in Ottawa from 2007 to 2012. With the creative companies he founded, Abé Carré Cé Carré in Quebec and Au Carré de l'Hypoténuse in France, he was an associate artist at the Avignon Festival in 2009, where he created Le Sang des Promesses, composed of Littoral, Incendies, Forêts and Ciels. After his last creation Temps in 2011, he turned to the staging of the seven tragedies of Sophocles, comprising the opus Des Femmes in 2011, followed by Des Héros and Des Mourants.

The recipient of numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award for Littoral in 2000 and the Prix de la Francophonie from the Société des auteurs compositeurs dramatiques in 2004 for his body of work, he was named Chevalier de l'Ordre National des Arts et Lettres in 2002, Three years later, he was named a Knight of the Order of Canada, and he received an honorary doctorate from the Ecole Normale Supérieure des Lettres et Sciences humaines de Lyon and the Grand Prix du théâtre from the Académie française. His plays have been translated into more than fifteen languages and performed all over the world, including Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Australia and the United States.

“As in Mouawad's previous shows, we find ourselves at the heart of a theater of emotion, where everything is absolutely mastered. And once again, Mouawad's ability to tie together all the threads, from the most intimate to the most remote, of a plot that is nonetheless exponential, is striking.”

– Maïa Bouteillet, Libération

“With Seuls, Wajdi Mouawad pushes the limits of his art in a fascinating and courageous introspection. (...) On stage for 120 consecutive minutes, Mouawad plays his self-imposed game to the full, committing himself without restraint to the conventions of a genre which, this time more than ever, calls for introspection, self-questioning and the quest for identity.”

– Christian Saint-Pierre, Voir 

“Like Harwan's thesis subject, Wajdi Mouawad achieves the tour de force of the solo by creating the illusion that we've been plunged into the story and world of a host of characters. But with tragedy, blood and visual violence to remind us that, with Wajdi, we're always at war. And that childhood is always a knife in the throat.”

– Sylvie St-Jacques, La Presse