Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris is an English author, best known for her award-winning novel Chocolat which was later turned into a successful film. The film adaption was released in 2000, directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin and Johnny Depp. It was nominated for 8 BAFTAS and 5 Oscars.
Harris was born in Barnsley in Yorkshire, to an English father and a French mother. Her parents were both academics, teaching modern languages and literature at a local grammar school. Her first language was French which caused divisions between her English family, where no-one spoke French, and her French family, where no-one spoke English. Both families had turbulent histories and a tradition of strong women, kitchen gardening, storytelling, folklore and cookery.
Her writing began at an early age and was strongly influenced by Grimms' Fairy Tales and the tales of Charles Perrault, as well as local folklore and Norse mythology. She was educated at Wakefield Girls' High School, Barnsley Sixth Form College, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where she studied modern and medieval languages.
After a single, unsuccessful year as an accountant, which she describes as "like being trapped in a Terry Gilliam movie", she trained as a teacher at Sheffield University, and for fifteen years she taught modern languages, mostly at Leeds Grammar School, a boys' independent school in Yorkshire. She also taught at Sheffield University, lecturing on aspects of French literature and film. During this period, she worked on a number of book projects.
The Evil Seed, Sleep, Pale Sister and Chocolat were published before she retired from teaching to become a full-time author.
Her first novel, The Evil Seed, was published in 1989, with only limited success. A second novel, Sleep, Pale Sister, shows the way in which her style developed from horror-pastiche to literary ghost story. In 1999, her third novel, Chocolat, a darkly magical modern folk-tale, thematically based on food and set in the Gers region of France, reached No. 1 in the Sunday Times' bestseller list. The book won the Creative Freedom Award in 1999 and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. The movie rights were sold to David Brown and developed by Miramax Pictures. The success of the motion picture, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, brought Harris worldwide recognition, and in 2012 she became one of only four female members of the "Millionaires' Club," the elite group of authors who have achieved a million sales of one book in the UK since records began.
Since Chocolat, all of Harris's books have been UK bestsellers. Her wide-ranging choice of subject matter means that her work often defies categorization, and she has a predilection for difficult or challenging issues. She has written two more novels in the Chocolat series, continuing the adventures of Vianne Rocher; The Lollipop Shoes (re-titled The Girl With No Shadow in the US) and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (Peaches for Father Francis in the US), as well as two French cookbooks (co-written with Fran Warde), two collections of short stories and a number of dark psychological thrillers, including Gentlemen and Players and Blueeyedboy.
In August 2007 she published Runemarks, a mythpunk/fantasy novel based on Norse mythology, aimed at both children and adults. The sequel, Runelight, was published in 2011, and since then, the Rune books have acquired an enthusiastic following alongside the fans of Vianne Rocher. Continuing the Norse mythology theme The Gospel of Loki was published in February 2014. This book tells of the rise and fall of the gods of Asgard from the point of view of Loki the trickster.
In 2011 she contributed a short story, Never Cut A Hawthorn, to Why Willows Weep – an anthology which supports the Woodland Trust.
Написанные книги
| Заголовок | Оценка | Добавлена | Жанры | Серии | Язык | Издана | Написана | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chocolat |
0 (0) | 0 | 28 октября 2010 11:14 | Современная проза | 62 | EN | |||
Czekolada |
10.0 (1) | 0 | 29 октября 2010 09:28 | Современная проза | 61 | PL | |||
Five Quarters of the Orange |
0 (0) | 0 | 28 октября 2010 11:10 | Современная проза | 68 | EN | |||
Holy Fools |
0 (0) | 0 | 28 октября 2010 11:26 | Историческая проза | 70 | EN | |||
Jeżynowe Wino |
0 (0) | 0 | 29 октября 2010 09:29 | Современная проза | 79 | PL | |||
Runemarks |
0 (0) | 0 | 29 октября 2010 09:21 | Современная проза | 97 | EN | |||
Sleep, Pale Sister |
0 (0) | 0 | 28 октября 2010 11:05 | Исторические детективы | 69 | EN |