Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Bowdoin College; a year
at Trinity College, Dublin.
• Awards—Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; Grand Prix du Figaro
• Currently—divides his betweeen London, Paris, Berlin, Montreal and Maine.
Douglas Kennedy, an American novelist, was born in Manhattan in 1955, the son of a commodities broker and a production assistant at NBC. He was educated at The Collegiate School and graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1976. He also spent a year studying at Trinity College Dublin. He explained:
I was a history major. 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.
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'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, Sunday Telegraph, Listener, New Statesman, and the British editions of Esquire and GQ.
His 10 novels have been translated in 22 countries. His most recent novel Five Days was published in 2013. His 2011 novel The Moment became a #1 Bestseller in France, as did his 2010 novel, Leaving the World. He received the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007. In November 2009, he received the first “Grand Prix du Figaro,” awarded by the newspaper Le Figaro.
Kennedy has two children, Max and Amelia. He divides his time between London, Paris, Berlin, Montreal and Maine. (From Wikipedia.)
Read an interview with the author in the Financial Times