Author
Biography
Born in Armagnac and having grown up in the Landes, Joël Supéry is rooted in Gascony on his paternal side and in Scandinavia on his maternal side. This dual belonging allows him to look at two worlds through the same eyes, and to see sociological and anthropological relationships that escape those who do not have this dual culture.
For him, training, learning, searching and discovering are the key words. Joël Supéry is a man with many strings to his bow, and a great deal of experience in life. Since the 1990s, he has successively worked in several professions and traveled around the world in a wide variety of professional fields: editor of a tourist guide in Indonesia (for Editions Le Petit Futé), merchant in the distribution of pastries, commercial and technical manager of a company protecting major buildings against flooding (nuclear power plants, La Rochelle port, public and commercial establishments in Europe, etc.), founder and general manager of a company for the Le Grand Ballon event (10 employees, 25,000 passengers), etc.
Passionate about ancient cartography and the history of navigation, he has been working for more than twenty years on the tireless travelers that were the Vikings. This explorer – a pioneer who puts into perspective all the new discoveries of modern science, which he likes to confront with persistent traditions.
Through his training as a lawyer, his working and research method is pragmatic and scientific. When he seeks to understand the past, he does not limit himself to written sources, but cross-references with archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, toponymy and other disciplines. Similar to a real investigator, he makes hypotheses and checks their relevance. This freedom of research takes him off the beaten track and leads him to propose a renewed reading of the past.
In addition, Joël Supéry was an Aquitain laureate of the European Young Entrepreneur Award and a member of companies for over twenty years. This period gave him an economic vision of the world. Thus, when he studies whaling in the Basque Country, the Viking expansion or the Crusades, he seeks to understand the economic drivers, trade patterns and logistical dimensions that can explain the course of things. This research allows him to pose new problems. Because, as he likes to recall, "it is by asking questions that have never been asked that we find answers that have never been sought."
Joël Supéry likes to share. He communicates and disseminates the results of his studies to a growing audience. Since 2005, he has been writing books about the Scandinavian presence in Aquitaine and the southern half of Europe. He uses his wealth of life in the service of analysis and discoveries, becoming over time, a true ethnographer of the Vikings.
You can read their analysis regularly by visiting the News section of this site. Joël Supéry deciphers for you the most recent and decisive advances that shed new light on the presence of the Vikings in France, in Europe, inland and on the shores of the seas, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
Author's background
1965
Born in 1965 on the lands of Aquitaine to a Scandinavian mother and a Gascon father. He gradually became passionate about the travel stories of the great expeditions: Cook, Vasco da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, Cartier, Verrazano, Cousin... Opening up the field of other, even broader fields: navigation, archaeology, history, cartography.
1983
With his literary baccalaureate in hand (Lettres Classiques Latin/Grec) in 1983, he embarked on law studies at the University of Bordeaux. Always eager to make progress in the field of knowledge, he will continue to train and question his knowledge throughout his professional life: training in SMEs, cartography, ancient history, navigation, remote exploration, carpentry, up to .... AI coding in 2024 !
1994
He co-wrote in 1994 his first book, a tourist guide on Indonesia for the house ofÉditions Le Petit Futé. The taste for travel will never leave him. However, it is upon returning from this long geographical journey that he will measure the importance of time travel.
1996 à 2000
A business leader, he set up a company between 1996 and 2000 with about ten employees and more than 25,000 clients, which earned him the award of "Aquitaine Winner of the European Young Entrepreneur Prize" in 1997.
2000 à 2004
He manages a team of fifteen writers for the site kelchoix.com , a cyberguide that positions itself as a trusted third party for consumers to facilitate their online and offline purchases from 2000 to 2004.
2003 à 2026
As early as 2003, he undertook research on well-established Aquitaian traditions, sought explanations that gave meaning to the history of the Vikings in France, and published his first articles. He made a specialty of this period, and published in 2005 his first book at Éditions Autrement-Groupe Flammarion. Then the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th... The 5th is being prepared for 2026, and the 6th isn’t very far away... Joël Supéry is insatiable, he never stops searching.... because he keeps coming up with explanations that give meaning to the scattered elements we don’t want to bring together. As he likes to say, "until then, we couldn’t find it because we didn’t look."
His travels
Everything seems to describe a trajectory, an itinerary in the discovery of the world... and the Vikings!
What sums up Joël Supéry’s journey is his openness and curiosity through travel. A true explorer of the world, he has visited more than 35 countries on 5 continents.
C “is an inveterate traveler: not only does he cover as much of the southwest, Gascony, and Aquitain as possible, but he has also traveled through Malaysia, Indies, Atlantic from the North (where he lived for 4 years) and the South (Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia...), Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, etc. Of course, Joël Supéry is at ease with foreign languages; he speaks English, Spanish, German, and even Malay!
The countries visited
Germany, Andorra, England, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Denmark, Scotland, Spain, USA (New York, Washington, Louisiana, Florida, California), France, Greece, Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Moluccas, etc.), Italy, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, New Guinea, Papua, Paraguay, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, Vatican, Yugoslavia.
