During the launch party of PIAGET‘s new POLO S watches in New York City, I had the pleasure to meet one of my favorite authors, award-winning Joël Dicker, as we have been both ambassadors for the brand.
Born in Geneva on June 16, 1985 to a bookseller and a French teacher; he is of both French and Russian descent and has literature in his blood thanks to his parents. Dicker spent his childhood in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. At the age of 19, he decided to move to Paris to take acting classes. A year later, he returned to his hometown to study law at the University of Geneva, obtaining a degree in 2010.
His early beginnings as a writer were not the easiest. However, they show that passion and persistence can overcome all odds. With his first work, the short novel «The Tiger», he participated in a youth literary contest in 2005. In this competition he was disqualified because the main judge presented doubts about his authorship. However, this didn’t stop Dicker and today, he sees it as a milestone in his career.
In 2009, Dicker completed his first novel called «The Final Days of our Fathers», based on the UK Secret Intelligence Service. After not raising interest in any publisher, in 2010 he decided to enroll her in the Prix des Ecrivains Genevois for unpublished works. The writer was the winner of this important award, to finally achieve its publication a year later with Éditions de Fallois.
His style to structure and write a book is different and therefore addictive. Throughout his work, fates and different worlds will cross, and some stories will be parallel all along to meet at the end, as the reader finally will discover the outcome.
Dicker has a very special way to come up with an intoxicating plot mixing shady past and shifting present while spicing it up with suspense and crime. The outcome? Thrilling, delightfully twisted, continually shocking, literary and intelligent novels that all kept me eagerly turning the pages.
My first Dicker book was «The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair» (2012), the story of an American novelist with writer’s block who begins to investigate a murder of which his former university professor is accused. You could say that this thriller took the world by storm. In summer 2013, the title displaced Dan Brown’s Inferno from the top of bestseller lists all over Europe. It has been translated into more than 40 languages and has sold more than 4.000.000 copies worldwide. In addition, the he won the Prix Goncourt des lycéens, the Prix de la Vocation and the Prix du roman from the French Academy. It has also subsequently been made into a 10-part television mini-series with Patrick Dempsey in the leading role.
Dicker’s third novel, «The Baltimore Boys», was released in 2015, followed by his fourth novel, «The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer» in 2018, which is another one of my favorites by Dicker, a captivating thriller with a killer twist.
In bed with «The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer».
After releasing his fifth novel «The Enigma of Room 622» in 2020, his fans were waiting impatiently for his new book … It’s now done! «L’Affaire Alaska Sanders» has been hitting the shelves… and I cannot wait to read it!
YOU CAN SHOP HIS BOOKS ONLINE HERE IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES.
LoL, Sandra
Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / Photo on bed: David Biedert Photography
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My dream team: Charles to the left, Nathanael to the right.
