Jonathan Littell
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Jonathan Littell (born 10 October 1967 in New York) is an American writer who writes mainly in French and lives in Barcelona.
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[edit] Works
Littell's novel Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones) was written in French and was published in France in 2006. The novel is the story of World War II and the Eastern Front, through the fictional memories by an articulate SS Obersturmbannführer, named Maximilien Aue.[1]
Littell said he was inspired to write the novel after seeing a photograph of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan who had been executed by the Nazis. He traces the original inspiration for the book from seeing Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah, an acclaimed documentary about the Holocaust, in 1989. He began research for the book in 2002 and wrote the first draft in 112 days.
Les Bienveillantes won the 2006 Prix Goncourt and the grand prix du roman of the Académie française and is a contender for several other French literary prizes. Reviews in France were generally good. The book sold 280,000 copies in its first six weeks.[2]
Littell's only previously published book, the cyberpunk novel Bad Voltage (1989), tells the story of Lynx, a "half-breed" who lives in a futuristic version of Paris, France. Many scenes in the novel take place the Paris Catacombs. Littell has also published an intelligence report about the security organs of the Russian Federation.
[edit] Biography
Littell is the son of author Robert Littell. His ancestors were Jews who emigrated from Poland to the United States at the end of the 19th century. He attended Yale University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1989.[3]
From 1994 to 2001, he worked for the international humanitarian organization "Action Against Hunger." He headed the agency’s mission in Chechnya. In January 2001 he was victim of an ambush there, during which he was slightly wounded and Kenny Gluck from Médecins Sans Frontières was kidnapped.[4]
[edit] Bibliography
- Bad Voltage: A Fantasy in 4/4 (1989) - Signet Books (ISBN 0-451-16014-2) - out of print
- Les Bienveillantes: Roman (2006) - Gallimard 903 pp.(ISBN 2-07-078097-X)
- The Security Organs of the Russian Federation - A Brief History 1991-2005 (2006) - Psan Publishing House 2006 e-book from the Post-Soviet Armies Newsletter
[edit] Awards
- Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, 2006.
- Prix Goncourt, 2006.
[edit] References
- ^ Mark Landler. Writer’s Unlikely Hero: A Deviant Nazi. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-10-11.
- ^ Charles Bremner. France falls in love with American's Nazi Novel". The Times. Retrieved on 2006-10-28.
- ^ Humanitarian agencies suspend operations in Chechnya after kidnapping of aid worker. Prague Watchdog. Retrieved on 2006-10-26.