Jake Lamar (born in 1961 in The Bronx, New York City) is an African-American writer, novelist, playwright, and cultural critic[1] living in Paris.[1]
Jake Lamar | |
|---|---|
 Jake Lamar signing at the 7th Interpol'Art Festival in Reims , in October 2012. | |
| Born | 1961 (age 62–63) New York City, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
After graduating from Harvard University, Lamar spent six years writing for Time magazine.[2] He has lived in Paris since 1993[3] and teaches creative writing at Sciences Po.[4] At age 30, he published a memoir, Bourgeois Blues, in which he evoked his relationship with his father. With it, he won the Lyndhurst Prize.[4] In 1993, inspired by the American writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin, he moved to Paris in the 18th arrondissement where he still resides.
After a near fatal heart problem in 2015, Lamar wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times on the quality of the socialist system of health care in France.[5] His most recent work, Viper's Dream (No Exit Press, 2023) is a crime novel set in the jazz world of Harlem between the years 1936 and 1961.[6] A version of Viper's Dream was broadcast (in French) as a 10-episode radio play in 2019. That production included many jazz tracks of the period. Viper's Dream was published in French as a novel by Rivages/Noir in 2021. Viper's Dream was published in the US by Crooked Lane Books on September 19, 2023.
Fiction in English edit
Fiction in French edit
- Le caméléon noir (Rivages/Noir 2003)
- Nous avions un rêve (Rivages/Noir 2005)
- New York Transfer (Biro 2007)
- Rendez-vous dans le 18ème (Rivages/Thriller 2007)
- Les Fantômes de Saint-Michel (Rivages/Thriller 2009)
- Confessions d'un fils modèle (Payot/Rivages 2009)
- Postérité (Rivages 2014)
- Viper's Dream (Rivages/Noir 2021)
Plays edit
- Brothers in Exile
- Brothers in Exile (radio play)
- Viper's Dream (radio play)
Awards edit
- Lyndhurst Prize (for his first book, Bourgeois Blues)
- Centre National du Livre grant (for his novel Postérité)
- France's Grand Prize for best foreign thriller (for his novel The Last Integrationist)
- Beaumarchais fellowship for his play Brothers in Exile
References edit
- ^ a b The Library of Congress
- ^ Interview with American writer Jake Lamar
- ^ Jake Lamar, le jazz américain, le roman noir et Paris
- ^ a b c d "Jake Lamar". Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ TALK BY JAKE LAMAR
- ^ [1] Viper's Dream, No Exit Press