Born in 1969 in Haiti, Jean-Euphèle Milcé refers to himself as an ex-elite. He has a degree in applied linguistics from the Université d'Etat d'Haïti, and further training in documentation and library management. He has taught Creole literature in his home country and directed Haiti's main heritage library.
He published his first texts in Creole as part of the Vendredis Littéraires programme run by the Université Caraïbes under the guidance of novelist Lyonel Trouillot, with whom he founded the journal Lire Haïti. The father and husband of a half-Haitian, half-Fribourg family, he moved to Switzerland in 2000. Since then he has worked on a number of library projects in French-speaking Switzerland