Jonathan Littell | |
|---|---|
 Jonathan Littell in 2007 | |
| Born | (1967-10-10)October 10, 1967 (age 58) New York City,New York, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American French |
| Notable works | The Kindly Ones (Les Bienveillantes) |
| Notable awards | Prix Goncourt 2006 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française 2006 |
| Relatives | Robert Littell (father) |
Jonathan Littell (born October 10, 1967) is an American-born writer living inBarcelona.[1] His first novel written in French,The Kindly Ones (2006;Les Bienveillantes), won two major French awards, including thePrix Goncourt and thePrix de l'Académie française.
Littell grew up in France and the United States and is acitizen of both countries. After acquiring his bachelor's degree, he worked for a humanitarian organisation for nine years, leaving his job in 2001 in order to concentrate on writing.
Littell is the son of authorRobert Littell. Although his grandparents were Jews who emigrated fromRussia to the United States at the end of the 19th century, Littell does not define himself as a Jew "at all," and is quoted as saying, "for me Judaism is more [of] a historical background."[2]
Born in New York City, Littell arrived in France at age three, then completed part of his education in his native country from age 13 to 16, before returning to France to achieve hisbaccalauréat. He returned again to the United States where he attendedYale University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1989.[3] During his years at Yale, he finished his first book,Bad Voltage, and later on metWilliam S. Burroughs, who left a lasting impression on him. Due to his influence, he started to read Burroughs, as well asSade,Blanchot,Genet,Céline,Bataille andBeckett.[4] Afterwards, he worked as a translator, rendering French works bySade,Blanchot,Genet andQuignard into English.[5][6] At the same time, he started to write a ten-volume book, but gave up the project after the third volume.[7]
From 1994 to 2001, he worked for the international humanitarian organizationAction Against Hunger, working mainly inBosnia and Herzegovina, but also inChechnya,Democratic Republic of Congo,Sierra Leone,Caucasus, Afghanistan and Moscow.[2][8] In January 2001 he was victim of an ambush in Chechnya, during which he was slightly wounded.[9] In the same year he decided to quit his job in order to concentrate on the research of his second book,The Kindly Ones. During that time, he also worked as a consultant for humanitarian organizations.[2]
Littell obtained French citizenship (while being able to keep his American citizenship) in March 2007 after French officials made use of a clause stating that any French speaker whose "meritorious actions contribute to the glory of France" are allowed to become citizens, despite not fulfilling the requirement that he live in France for more than six months out of the year.[10]
Littell's novelThe Kindly Ones was written in French and was published in France in 2006. The novel is the story of World War II and theEastern Front, through the fictional memories of an articulateSS officer named Maximilien Aue.[11]
Littell said he was inspired to write the novel after seeing a photograph ofZoya Kosmodemyanskaya, aSovietpartisan executed by theWehrmacht. He traces the original inspiration for the book from seeingClaude Lanzmann’s filmShoah, an acclaimed documentary aboutthe Holocaust, in 1991. He began research for the book in 2001 and started the first draft eighteen months later, after he had read around two hundred books about theThird Reich and the Eastern Front,[12] as well as visiting Germany, East Europe and Caucasus. Littell claims that he undertook the creation of his main character, Aue, by imagining what he himself would have done had he been born in pre-war Germany and had become aNational Socialist.[2]
Littell's only previously published book, thecyberpunk novelBad Voltage, which Littell considers "a very bad science-fiction novel",[13] tells the story of Lynx, a "half-breed" who lives in a futuristicParis. Many scenes in the novel take place in theParis Catacombs; he also includes an unusual appendix in this novel which lists all the music and songs he listened to while composing. In addition, Littell has published a detailed intelligence report about the security organs of theRussian Federation, an analysis ofLéon Degrelle's bookLa Campagne de Russie, influenced by the works of the sociologistKlaus Theweleit, one book with four texts written beforeThe Kindly Ones and, finally, a short essay.[citation needed]
FollowingThe Kindly Ones, Littell directed a documentary titledWrong Elements, in which he interviews the former child soldiers ofJoseph Kony. The film was screened out of competition at the2016 Cannes Film Festival.[14]
The Kindly Ones won the 2006Prix Goncourt and thegrand prix du roman of theAcadémie française. By the end of 2007, more than 700,000 copies had been sold in France.[15]
Littell was recognised for his contributions in the area of overwrought erotica when the English translation ofThe Kindly Ones won the 2009 Bad Sex in Fiction Award fromThe Literary Review, a British literary journal.[16] Littell reportedly beat tough competition for that year's honours, withPhilip Roth andNick Cave among the writers filling out the short list.[17]
He won thePrix Sade in 2018 forUne vieille histoire.[18]
In a May 2008 interview withHaaretz, Littell accused Israel of usingthe Holocaust for political gain and likened Israel's behavior in the occupied territories to that of the Nazis prior to World War II: "If the [Israeli] government would let the soldiers do worse things, they would. Everyone says, 'Look how the Germans dealt with the Jews even before the Holocaust: cutting the beards, humiliating them in public, forcing them to clean the street.' That kind of stuff happens in the territories every day. Every goddamn day." However, he also said that "We really cannot compare the two".[2]
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Jonathan Littell married a Belgian woman and had two children with her, Émir (b. 2000) and Alma Littell (b. 2002).[19][20]
