James Meek is a British writer and journalist. He was born in London and grew up in Dundee

Dundee

Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

, Scotland.

Meek spent several years living in the former Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in the 1990s and now resides in London. He has published four novels and two short story collections. In 2004 he was named Foreign Correspondent and Amnesty Journalist of The Year. His third novel, The People’s Act of Love (2005), received significant critical acclaim and went on to win the Scottish Arts Council

Scottish Arts Council

The Scottish Arts Council is a Scottish public body that distributes funding from the Scottish Government, and is the leading national organisation for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland...

 Book of Year Award and the Ondaatje Prize

Ondaatje Prize

The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given by the Royal Society of Literature. The £10,000 award is given for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry which evokes the "spirit of a place", and which is written by someone who is a citizen of or who has been...

. It has been translated into twenty languages. His fourth novel, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent (2008) won the Prince Maurice prize.

A film version of The People's Act of Love adapted by Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp

John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...

 is in development.

Meek was on the staff of The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

newspaper until 2005 and has reported on subjects including the war in Iraq, the Chechen conflict

Second Chechen War

The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

, the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay

Guantanamo Bay detainment camp

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq...

 and tax avoidance

Tax avoidance

Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax...

 by wealthy individuals in the UK.

Translations

Czech

• Sibiřské drama: syrový milostný příběh z období ruské revoluce, 2006, ISBN 80-7217-446-0

Danish

• I kærlighedens navn, 2005, ISBN 87-91746-01-9

Dutch

• Uit liefde van het volk

French

• Nous commençons notre descente, translation David Fauquemberg, Métaillé 2008 ISBN 978-2-86424-657-2
• Un acte d'amour, translation David Fauquemberg, Métaillé 2007 ISBN 978-2-86424-607-7
• Thé à l'eau de mer (McFarlane Boils the Sea), translation Fanchita Gonzalez Battle, Autrement, 1997 ISBN 978-2-86260703-0

German

• Die einsamen Schrecken der Liebe, 2005, ISBN 3-426-19710-3

Hungarian

• A szeretet hírmondói, 2008, ISBN 978-963-87565-8-9

Italian

• Per amore del popolo, 2005, ISBN 88-304-2267-3

Norwegian

• Kjærlighetens utposter, 2007

Portuguese

• O Acto de Amor do Povo, 2006

Romanian

• Un gest de iubire, 2007, ISBN 978-973-50-1765-1

Serbian

• Narodna deklaracija ljubavi, 2007

Swedish

• Den yttersta kärlekens gulag, 2006

External links

• http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/article_james_meek_peoples_act_of_love.htm (author interview)
• http://www.barcelonareview.com/51/e_int.htm (author interview)
• http://www.prx.org/pieces/12824 (radio interview from Radio Netherlands, English)
• http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/21914.html (press reviews, German)
• http://www.welt.de/data/2005/08/20/762207.html (review in Die Welt, German)
• http://www.parool.nl/boeken/2005/recensies/102005-meek.html (review in Het Parool, Dutch)
• http://www.8weekly.nl/index.php?art=3058 (review, Dutch)