birth_place awards nationality notableworks birth_date genre image article_title name occupation
geneva prix l’academie francaise goncourt des lycéens grand prix du roman de swiss '' la vérité sur l’affaire harry quebert '' 16 june 1985 thriller file : pr 0044 joeldicker crop.jpg joël dicker
 joël dicker novelist
joël dicker

joël dicker is a swiss novelist from geneva , switzerland , a french-speaking city .
dicker was born on 16 june 1985 , and attended geneva schools .
at age 19 he left for drama school in paris , at the cours florent .
after one year he returned to switzerland to enroll in law school , where he received his masters of law from the university of geneva in 2010 .
joël dicker became europe 's publishing sensation of 2013 when his book `` la vérité sur l'affaire harry quebert '' sold nearly a million copies in france .
however , his writing career started when he was a child .
at age ten he founded `` la gazette des animaux '' , a monthly magazine about wildlife .
he was its editor-in-chief for seven years .
in this capacity he won the cunéo prize for the protection of nature , and was named `` switzerland 's youngest editor-in-chief '' by the tribune de genève .
in 2010 , at age 25 , dicker won the prix des ecrivains genevois -lrb- geneva writers ' prize -rrb- , a prestigious prize for unpublished manuscripts .
after his win , the parisian editor bernard de fallois acquired dicker 's winning submission , `` les derniers jours de nos pères '' , and published it in early 2012 .
only six months later , in september 2012 , de fallois published dicker 's `` la vérité sur l'affaire harry quebert '' .
with translation rights sold in 32 languages , `` the truth about the harry quebert affair '' has been called `` the cleverest , creepiest book you 'll read this year . ''
the worldwide excitement started at the 2012 frankfurt book fair , where many foreign editors rushed to buy the rights from bernard de fallois .
in late october 2012 , `` la vérité ... '' -lrb- `` the truth ... '' -rrb- won the 2012 grand prix du roman de l'academie francaise .
it was also shortlisted for the prix goncourt and the prix femina .
in november 2012 , `` la vérité ... '' was awarded the prix goncourt des lycéens .
for this prize , 2000 french-speaking high school students vote on their favorite novel from the year 's prix goncourt shortlist .
in summer 2013 , `` la vérité ... '' knocked dan brown 's `` inferno '' from the top of bestseller lists all over europe .
early readers of the english translation have described the book as `` literary and clever . ''
considered switzerland 's answer to `` the girl with the dragon tattoo '' , and compared to the fiction of nabokov and roth as well as the television series `` twin peaks '' , `` the truth about the harry quebert affair '' was published in the united states by penguin on 27 may 2014 .
it was one of the biggest original acquisitions in the history of penguin books .
