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Jean-Claude Carriere was born in a small village in the South of France in 1931. The son of a farmer, Carriere began his studies at a religious college, and then in Paris, where he arrived in 1945, one month before the end of the war. He graduated with degrees in literature and history and published his first novel at the age of twenty-four.

Carriere met filmmaker Jacques Tati in 1957 and started working in film with Pierre Etaix, Tati's assistant. Their second short, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, won the Academy Awards in 1962.

Their first feature film, THE SUITOR, won the French Prix Delluc in 1963. Carriere went on to work with director Luis Bunuel, with whom he collaborated for nineteen years. Carriere wrote the screenplays for Bunuel's DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, BELLE DE JOUR (winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival), THE MILKY WAY, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film), THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY, and THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE, for which Carriere's screenplay received an Oscar nomination.

Carriere's other credits include Volker Schlondorff's THE TIN DRUM (Golden Palm winner at the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film) and THE OGRE; Daniel Vigne's THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE; Milos Forman's TAKING OFF and VALMONT; Louis Mane's MAY FOOLS; Philip Kaufman's THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING; Andrej Wajda's DANTON (winner of the French Louis Delluc prize); Jean-Luc Godard's SAUVE QUI PEUT (LA VIE); Jean-Paul Rappeneau's CYRANO DE BERGERAC (winner of the French Cesar); and Wayne Wang's CHINESE BOX. With Jean-Louis Barrault, Carriere also co-wrote the screenplay for a French television adaptation of Colin Higgins' HAROLD AND MAUDE.

As a playwright, Carriere has worked in Paris for twenty-four years with director Peter Brook. Their collaborations include The Conference of the Birds, The Tragedy of Carmen, The Man Who, and The Mahabharata, which was also a film and a television series.

Carriere's other plays include L'Aide-memoire, La Terrasse, and The Controversy of Valladolid (also a French TV film winner of the Prix Italia). Carriere also writes novels, essays, and songs. With the Dalai Lama, Carriere co-wrote La Force du Buddhism, published in 1995. He recently published Le vin bourru, a book about his childhood in the South of France, and the Dictionanaire amoureux de L'inde, meditations on India, a country to which he has often traveled.

In 2000, Carriere was honored by the Writers Guild of America with the Laurel Award, and was the first non-American recipient of the honor. Carriere lives in Paris and in the South of France.