Joël Dicker

Joël Dicker
Born (1985-06-16) 16 June 1985
Geneva
Occupation Novelist
Nationality Swiss
Genre Thriller
Notable works La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert
Notable awards Prix Goncourt des Lycéens Grand Prix du Roman de l’Academie Francaise
Website
www.joeldicker.com

Joël Dicker (born 1985) is a Swiss novelist.

Early life

Joël Dicker was born on 16 June 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland. He attended Geneva schools. At the age of 19, he enrolled at the Cours Florent in Paris. After one year he returned to Switzerland to attend law school, where he received his Masters of Law from the University of Geneva in 2010.[1]

Career

In 2010, at the age of 25, Dicker won the Prix des Ecrivains Genevois (Geneva Writers’ Prize), a prestigious prize for unpublished manuscripts. Subsequently, the Parisian editor Bernard de Fallois acquired Dicker’s winning submission, Les Derniers Jours de Nos Pères, and published it in early 2012. Only six months later, in September 2012, de Fallois published Dicker’s La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert.[1] At the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, many foreign editors acquired the rights from Bernard de Fallois.[2] The book was translated in 32 languages. In late October 2012, La Vérité… (The Truth…) won the 2012 Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française. It was also shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Femina.[3]
In November 2012, La Vérité… was awarded the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. For this prize, 2000 French-speaking high school students vote on their favorite novel from the year’s Prix Goncourt shortlist. In summer 2013, La Vérité… knocked Dan Brown’s Inferno from the top of bestseller lists all over Europe. Early readers of the English translation have described the book as "literary and clever."[4] Considered Switzerland’s answer to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,[5] and compared to the fiction of Nabokov and Roth as well as the television series Twin Peaks,[2] The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair was published in the United States by Penguin on 27 May 2014.[6] It was one of the biggest original acquisitions in the history of Penguin Books.[7]
Dicker’s third novel, Le Livre des Baltimore, was released on 26 September 2015.[8]

Plagiarism allegations

While the Swiss media outlets remained silent about the plagiarism allegations, French critics panned the La Vérité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert, pointing out that Dicker heavily borrowed from Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, using the same plot, same characters background and location[9] and deemed the novel a "poorly written Philip Roth novel".

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 "Biographie / Biography.". JoelDicker.com.
  2. 1 2 Wood, Gaby (1 February 2014). "Harry Quebert: The French thriller that has taken the world by storm". The Telegraph. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  3. ↑ Farrington, Joshua. "MacLehose signs 'cinematic' Joël Dicker". The Bookseller. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  4. ↑ Bury, Liz. "Dan Brown-trumping French bestseller due in English next year". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Lewis, Andy (4 December 2013). "International Best-Seller 'The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair' Lands Big-Money U.S. Deal". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  6. ↑ "The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair". Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Li, Shirley (5 December 2013). "Penguin Books acquires Joël Dicker's international bestseller 'The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  8. ↑ ""Le Livre des Baltimore", trop beau pour être vrai". Le Temps. 26 September 2015.
  9. ↑ http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/rentree-litteraire-2012/20121105.OBS8048/joel-dicker-a-t-il-ecrit-une-pale-resucee-de-philip-roth.html
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