Jonathan Littell

American-French writer

Jonathan Littell

Jonathan Littell in 2007

Born|  (1967-10-10) October 10, 1967 (age 57)
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 a writer living in Barcelona. His first novel written in French, The Kindly Ones (2006; Les Bienveillantes), won two major French awards, including the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l'Académie française.

Littell grew up in France and the United States and is a citizen 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.

## Early life and career

[edit]

Littell is the son of author Robert Littell. Although his grandparents were Jews who emigrated from Russia 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."[1]

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 his baccalauréat. He returned again to the United States where he attended Yale University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1989.[2] During his years at Yale, he finished his first book, Bad Voltage, and later on met William S. Burroughs, who left a lasting impression on him. Due to his influence, he started to read Burroughs, as well as Sade, Blanchot, Genet, Céline, Bataille and Beckett.[3] Afterwards, he worked as a translator, rendering French works by Sade, Blanchot, Genet and Quignard into English.[4][5] At the same time, he started to write a ten-volume book, but gave up the project after the third volume.[6]

From 1994 to 2001, he worked for the international humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger, working mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Chechnya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Caucasus, Afghanistan and Moscow.[1][7] In January 2001 he was victim of an ambush in Chechnya, during which he was slightly wounded.[8] 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.[1]

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.[9]

## Works

[edit]

Littell's novel The Kindly Ones was written in French and was published in France in 2006. The novel is the story of World War II and the Eastern Front, through the fictional memories of an articulate SS officer named Maximilien Aue.[10]

Littell said he was inspired to write the novel after seeing a photograph of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan executed by the Wehrmacht. He traces the original inspiration for the book from seeing Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah, an acclaimed documentary about the 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 the Third Reich and the Eastern Front,[11] 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 a National Socialist.[1]

Littell's only previously published book, the cyberpunk novel Bad Voltage, which Littell considers "a very bad science-fiction novel",[12] tells the story of Lynx, a "half-breed" who lives in a futuristic Paris. Many scenes in the novel take place in the Paris 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 the Russian Federation, an analysis of Léon Degrelle's book La Campagne de Russie, influenced by the works of the sociologist Klaus Theweleit, one book with four texts written before The Kindly Ones and, finally, a short essay.[citation needed]

Following The Kindly Ones, Littell directed a documentary titled Wrong Elements, in which he interviews the former child soldiers of Joseph Kony. The film was screened out of competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.[13]

## Awards

[edit]

The Kindly Ones won the 2006 Prix Goncourt and the grand prix du roman of the Académie française. By the end of 2007, more than 700,000 copies had been sold in France.[14]

Littell was recognised for his contributions in the area of overwrought erotica when the English translation of The Kindly Ones won the 2009 Bad Sex in Fiction Award from The Literary Review, a British literary journal.[15] Littell reportedly beat tough competition for that year's honours, with Philip Roth and Nick Cave among the writers filling out the short list.[16]

He won the Prix Sade in 2018 for Une vieille histoire.[17]

## Commentary

[edit]

In a May 2008 interview with Haaretz, Littell accused Israel of using the 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".[1]

## Works

[edit]

* 1989 – Bad Voltage
* 2006 – Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones, 2009)
* 2006 – The Security Organs of the Russian Federation. A Brief History 1991–2004
* 2008 – Le Sec et L'Humide
* 2008 – Études
* 2008 – Georgisches Reisetagebuch
* 2009 – Récit sur Rien
* 2009 – Tchétchénie, An III
* 2010 – En Pièces
* 2011 – Triptyque: Trois études sur Francis Bacon (Triptych: Three Studies after Francis Bacon, 2013)
* 2011 – The Invisible Enemy
* 2012 – Une vieille histoire
* 2012 – Carnets de Homs (Syrian Notebooks: Inside the Homs uprising, 2015)
* 2013 – The Fata Morgana Books
* 2018 - Une vielle histoire (nouvelle version)
* 2022 - De l'agression russe. Écrits polémiques
* 2023 - Un endroit inconvénient (with photographs by Antoine d'Agata)
* 2024 - The Damp and the Dry (translated to English by Max Lawton)

## Awards

[edit]

* Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, 2006, for Les Bienveillantes
* Prix Goncourt, 2006, for Les Bienveillantes
* Bad Sex in Fiction Award, 2009, for The Kindly Ones

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e Uni 2008
2. ^ Alfred University 2004
3. ^ Littell & Nora 2007, p. 26
4. ^ Lemonier 2007, p. 14
5. ^ Littell & Georgesco 2007
6. ^ Littell & Millet 2007, p. 26
7. ^ HarperCollins
8. ^ Prague Watchdog 2001
9. ^ Combes 2007
10. ^ Landler 2007
11. ^ Garcin 2006
12. ^ Littell & Nora 2007, p. 28
13. ^ Jonathan Littell, Cannes Film Festival, 2016, retrieved 16 May 2016
14. ^ Le Figaro 2006
15. ^ The Literary Review
16. ^ Lea, Richard. [1] "Bad sex award goes to Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones", The Guardian, 2009-11-30. Retrieved on 2009-12-06.
17. ^ Vincy Thomas, "Jonathan Littell couronné par le Prix Sade 2018". Livres Hebdo, October 8, 2018.

## References

[edit]

* Alfred University (April 8, 2004). "Best-selling author helps student from Chechnya attend Alfred University". Archived from the original on November 30, 2007. Retrieved 2006-10-26.
* Combes, Marie-Laure (October 9, 2007). "American Novelist Becomes French Citizen". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* Garcin, Jérôme (November 6, 2006). "Littell est grand, by Jérôme Garcin". Nouvel Observateur. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* HarperCollins. "Jonathan Littell from HarperCollins Publishers". Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* Landler, Mark (March 9, 2007). "Writer's Unlikely Hero: A Deviant Nazi". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-10-11.
* Lemonier, Marc (2007), Les Bienveillantes décryptées, Le Pré aux Clercs, p. 249, ISBN 978-2-266-18164-8
* Le Figaro (January 1, 2006). "Les vingt événements de 2008". Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* Littell, Jonathan; Georgesco, Florent (January 2007). "Jonathan Littell, homme de l'année". Le Figaro. Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* Littell, Jonathan; Nora, Pierre (March–April 2007). "Conversation sur l'histoire et le roman". Le Débat. 144 (2). Gallimard: 25–44. doi:10.3917/deba.144.0025.
* Littell, Jonathan; Millet, Richard (March–April 2007). "Conversation à Beyrouth". Le Débat. 144 (2). Gallimard: 4–24. doi:10.3917/deba.144.0004.
* Prague Watchdog (January 11, 2001). "Humanitarian agencies suspend operations in Chechnya after kidnapping of aid worker". Retrieved 2009-04-09.
* Uni, Assaf (May 30, 2008). "The executioner's song". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2008-06-01. Retrieved 2009-04-09.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Littell, Jonathan; Blumenfeld, Samuel (November 17, 2006). "Littell Interview with Samuel Blumenfeld". Le Monde des Livres. Archived from the original on November 10, 2012. Retrieved 2009-04-24.

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Laureates of the Prix Goncourt

1903–1925|

* 1903 John Antoine Nau
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* 1974 Pascal Lainé
* 1975 Émile Ajar (Romain Gary)

1976–2000|

* 1976 Patrick Grainville
* 1977 Didier Decoin
* 1978 Patrick Modiano
* 1979 Antonine Maillet
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2001–present|

* 2001 Jean-Christophe Rufin
* 2002 Pascal Quignard
* 2003 Jacques-Pierre Amette
* 2004 Laurent Gaudé
* 2005 François Weyergans
* 2006 Jonathan Littell
* 2007 Gilles Leroy
* 2008 Atiq Rahimi
* 2009 Marie NDiaye
* 2010 Michel Houellebecq
* 2011 Alexis Jenni
* 2012 Jérôme Ferrari
* 2013 Pierre Lemaitre
* 2014 Lydie Salvayre
* 2015 Mathias Énard
* 2016 Leïla Slimani
* 2017 Éric Vuillard
* 2018 Nicolas Mathieu
* 2019 Jean-Paul Dubois
* 2020 Hervé Le Tellier
* 2021 Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
* 2022 Brigitte Giraud
* 2023 Jean-Baptiste Andrea

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Laureates of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française

1915–1925|

* 1915 Paul Acker
* 1916 Louis de Blois [fr]
* 1917 Charles Géniaux [fr]
* 1918 Camille Mayran [fr]
* 1919 Pierre Benoit
* 1920 André Corthis
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* 1923 Alphonse de Châteaubriant
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1926–1950|

* 1926 François Mauriac
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* 1940 Édouard Peisson [fr]
* 1941 Robert Bourget-Pailleron
* 1942 Jean Blanzat
* 1943 Joseph-Henri Louwyck [fr]
* 1944 Pierre Lagarde [fr]
* 1945 Marc Blancpain [fr]
* 1946 Jean Orieux [fr]
* 1947 Philippe Hériat
* 1948 Yves Gandon [fr]
* 1949 Yvonne Pagniez
* 1950 Joseph Jolinon

1951–1975|

* 1951 Bernard Barbey [fr]
* 1952 Henri Castillou [fr]
* 1953 Jean Hougron
* 1954 Pierre Moinot / Paul Mousset [fr]
* 1955 Michel de Saint Pierre [fr]
* 1956 Paul Guth
* 1957 Jacques de Bourbon Busset
* 1958 Henri Queffélec
* 1959 Gabriel d'Aubarède
* 1960 Christian Murciaux [fr]
* 1961 Phạm Văn Ký [fr; vi]
* 1962 Michel Mohrt
* 1963 Robert Margerit
* 1964 Michel Droit
* 1965 Jean Husson [fr]
* 1966 François Nourissier
* 1967 Michel Tournier
* 1968 Albert Cohen
* 1969 Pierre Moustiers
* 1970 Bertrand Poirot-Delpech
* 1971 Jean d'Ormesson
* 1972 Patrick Modiano
* 1973 Michel Déon
* 1974 Kléber Haedens
* 1975

1976–2000|

* 1976 Pierre Schoendoerffer
* 1977 Camille Bourniquel
* 1978 Pascal Jardin
* 1979 Henri Coulonges
* 1980 Louis Gardel
* 1981 Jean Raspail
* 1982 Vladimir Volkoff
* 1983 Liliane Guignabodet [fr]
* 1984 Jacques-Francis Rolland [fr]
* 1985 Patrick Besson
* 1986 Pierre-Jean Rémy
* 1987 Frédérique Hébrard
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* 1998 Anne Wiazemsky
* 1999 François Taillandier / Amélie Nothomb
* 2000 Pascal Quignard

2001–present|

* 2001 Éric Neuhoff
* 2002 Marie Ferranti
* 2003 Jean-Noël Pancrazi
* 2004 Bernard du Boucheron
* 2005 Henriette Jelinek [fr]
* 2006 Jonathan Littell
* 2007 Vassilis Alexakis
* 2008 Marc Bressant [fr]
* 2009 Pierre Michon
* 2010 Éric Faye [fr]
* 2011 Sorj Chalandon
* 2012 Joël Dicker
* 2013 Christophe Ono-dit-Biot [fr]
* 2014 Adrien Bosc [fr]
* 2015 Hédi Kaddour / Boualem Sansal
* 2016 Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre
* 2017 Daniel Rondeau
* 2018 Camille Pascal
* 2019 Laurent Binet
* 2020 Étienne de Montety
* 2021 François-Henri Désérable
* 2022 Giuliano da Empoli

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