Douglas Kennedy is an internationally renowned and bestselling novelist. His 10 novels have
been translated in 22 countries. His latest novel, The Moment, to be published in paperback with
Atria

Atria

Atria may refer to:*Atrium , an anatomical structure of the heart*Atrium , a large open space within a building*Atria or Alpha Trianguli Australis, a star in the constellation Triangulum Australe...

 (a division of Simon and Schuster) in November, 2011, recently became a #1 Bestseller in
France, as did his earlier novel, Leaving the World. Kennedy’s novels are often
written in European landscapes, and have been particularly acclaimed and beloved in France,
where Kennedy was awarded the French decoration, The Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...

 in 2007. In November 2009, he received the first “Grand Prix du Figaro,” awarded by the
newspaper Le Figaro

Le Figaro

Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

.

Kennedy has two children, Max and Amelia. He divides his time between London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

and Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

.

Early Life

Kennedy was born in Manhattan in 1955, the son of a commodities broker and a production
assistant at NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. He was educated at The Collegiate School

The Collegiate School

Collegiate School is an independent school for boys in New York City and is one of the oldest schools in the United States. It is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is a member of both the New York Interschool and the Ivy Preparatory School League.-History:Collegiate was founded in the...

 and graduated magna cum
laude from Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

 in 1976. He also spent a year studying at Trinity College Dublin.

"I was a history major," Kennedy explained. "Retrospectively, I think the history major provides
much better training for a novelist. So much of what I do in my own fiction is observational;
is looking at behavior. By studying human history you really see how human folly endlessly
repeats itself. In my work—in whatever form it takes—I am very much grappling with what it
means to be American in this way."[1]

In 1977, he returned to Dublin and started a co-operative theatre company with a friend. He was
later hired to run the Abbey Theatre

Abbey Theatre

The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

's second house, The Peacock. At the age of 28, he resigned
from The Peacock to write full time. After several radio plays for the BBC and one stage play, he
decided to switch directions and wrote his first book, a narrative account of his travels in Egypt
called Beyond the Pyramids, which published in 1988. Kennedy and his wife moved to London
that year, where Kennedy expanded his journalistic work, and wrote for The Sunday Times, The
Sunday Telegraph, The Listener, The New Statesman, and the British editions of Esquire and
GQ.

Novels

Beyond the Pyramids

Dead Heart

Big Picture

The Job

Temptation

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Woman in the Fifth

A Special Relationship

State of the Union

Leaving the World

The Moment

Films

The Dead Heart was the basis of the 1997 film Welcome to Woop Woop

Welcome to Woop Woop

Welcome to Woop Woop is a 1997 Australian-British comedy film, directed by Stephan Elliott starring Johnathon Schaech and Rod Taylor. The film was based on the novel The Dead Heart by Douglas Kennedy...

. Kennedy’s second
novel, The Big Picture, a New York Times Bestseller, was a dark exploration of identity and self-
entrapment set in Connecticut’s suburbs. It was adapted for film (L'Homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa
Vie) and released in theaters in 2010, starring Romain Duris

Romain Duris

-Life:Born on 28 May 1974 in Paris, son of an engineer-architect father, Duris studied arts at university. He was noticed in the street by a casting director whilst waiting in a queue in 1993 and offered a part in the 1994 Cédric Klapisch film Le péril jeune...

 and Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...

.

The Woman in the Fifth, the story of a beleaguered professor who falls in love with a strange
woman who isn’t the person she seems, was also adapted into film, and is scheduled for
theatrical release in November 2011, starring Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...

 and Kristin Scott Thomas

Kristin Scott Thomas

Kristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient....

External links

• Douglas Kennedy at the Internet Book List http://www.iblist.com
• Review of Beyond the Pyramids (en español)