Robert Littell

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Robert Littell (born January 8, 1935 in Brooklyn , New York City ) is an American writer .

Life

Robert Littell was born in Brooklyn as a descendant of Jewish-Polish immigrants. His ancestors had left Russia at the time of the pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in the 1880s. He studied at Alfred University in New York State , where he graduated in 1956 with a bachelor's degree . Littell then served for four years in the United States Navy on the destroyer USS John R. Pierce , where he worked, among other things, as a navigator and radio officer . He later became a journalist and from 1964 worked for the news magazine Newsweek as a correspondent in Eastern Europe.

In 1970 Littell gave up his journalistic profession and moved with his family to France , where he processed his experiences during the Cold War in literary terms. In 1973 he published the spy novel The Defection of AJ Lewinter (German: Moscow there and back or Der Springer ), which was awarded the Dagger Award in the category of best English-language novel in the same year . Robert Littell now appeared regularly with spy literature thrillers , which, however, could not build on the success of his debut work. It wasn't until the large-scale CIA saga The Company became a global bestseller in 2002.

On a trip to Moscow in 1979 he met Nadezhda Mandelstam , the widow of the poet Ossip Mandelstam , who was murdered under the Stalin regime , whose memories kept him busy. His novel The Stalin Epigram emerged in 2009 from his continuous preoccupation with Russian literature in general and the poetry of Mandelstam in particular .

Robert Littell lives in the southern French municipality of Martel in the Lot department . One of his two sons lives as a painter in Prague (Jesse Littell, * 1969), the other, Jonathan Littell (* 1967), as a writer in Barcelona .

Works

Novels

  • 1973 The Defection of AJ Lewinter
    • Moscow there and back , German by Henry Jelinek, Vienna, Hamburg: Zsolnay 1974. ISBN 3-552-02624-X
    • also: Der Springer , same translation, Munich: Goldmann 1986. ISBN 3-442-08582-9
  • 1974 Sweet Reason
  • 1975 The October Circle
    • In den Klauen des Bären , German by Edda Petri-Bean, Munich: Goldmann 1987. ISBN 3-442-08916-6
  • 1978 Mother Russia
  • 1979 The Debriefing
  • 1981 The Amateur
    • To be or not to be ... , German by Edda Petri-Bean, Munich: Goldmann 1987. ISBN 3-442-08812-7
  • 1986 The Sisters
  • 1988 The Revolutionist
  • 1990 The Once and Future Spy
  • 1991 To Agent in Place
    • Moscow, mon amour , German by Bernhard Riettz, Munich: Goldmann 1991. ISBN 3-442-30437-7
  • 1993 The Visiting Professor
  • 1996 Walking Back the Cat
  • 2002 The Company
    • The Company - the global, fascinating saga about the CIA , German by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, Bern, Munich, Vienna: Scherz 2002. ISBN 3-502-10430-1
  • 2005 Legends
    • The cold legend , German by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, Frankfurt am Main: Scherz 2006. ISBN 3-502-10033-0
  • 2006 Vicious Circle
    • The sons of Abraham , German by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann, Frankfurt am Main: Scherz 2008. ISBN 3-502-10179-5
  • 2009 The Stalin Epigram
  • 2012 Young Philby : A Novel .
    • Philby: Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man , translated by Werner Loch-Lawrence. Arche Literaturverlag, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-71602680-9 .

Non-fiction

  • 1969 The Czeck Black Book (editor), documentation about the end of the Prague Spring
  • 1969 If Israel Lost the War (co-author), Tales of the Six Day War
  • 1998 For the Future of Israel
    • Work for Peace: five conversations with Shimon Peres , German by Klaus Binder and Jeremy Gaines, Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer 1998. ISBN 3-10-044805-7

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julia Kospach: 'I was surprised how human Stalin was.' Interview with Robert Littell in: Falter , 41/09, October 7, 2009, p. 31 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Littell, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City