Prunier received a PhD in African History in 1981 from the University of Paris. In 1984, he joined the CNRS scientific institution in Paris as a researcher. He later also became Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa.
Prunier has published over 120 articles and five books. He is fluent in his native French, as well as English and Spanish. He also has good knowledge of Italian and German, and a basic knowledge of Juba Arabic (Sudanese colloquial Arabic) and Swahili.
Published works
Books
(French)Les Ethnies ont une histoire (ed. with Jean-Pierre Chrétien), Paris : Karthala, 1989, ISBN 2-86537-226-X
(French)L'Ouganda et la question indienne : 1896-1972, Paris : Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1990
L'Éthiopie contemporaine (director), CFEE-Karthala, Addis Abeba and Paris, 2007, ISBN 978-2-84586-736-9
From Genocide to Continental War: The "Congolese" Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa, C. Hurst & Co., 2009, ISBN 1-85065-523-5Published in the US as ''Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of Continental Catastrophe, Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-537420-9
Articles
"Burundi: A Manageable Crisis?", WRITENET (UK), October 1994
