Douglas  Kennedy Profile Picture

Keynote SpeakerDouglas Kennedy

Internationally acclaimed novelist, France’s most celebrated modern American writer

Douglas Kennedy is the author of twenty-seven books. Born in Manhattan, he is that rare construct: a native New Yorker. In 1977 he moved to Dublin and founded a small theatre company. Eighteen months later he was put in charge of The Abbey Theatre’s studio, The Peacock. Over the five... Read More

Biography

Douglas Kennedy is the author of twenty-seven books.

Born in Manhattan, he is that rare construct: a native New Yorker. In 1977 he moved to Dublin and founded a small theatre company. Eighteen months later he was put in charge of The Abbey Theatre’s studio, The Peacock. Over the five years that he ran the theatre, he began to write late at night – and has his first play accepted by BBC Radio in 1980. Other plays followed, and he left The Peacock in 1983 to become a full-time writer. More plays followed before he published his first book, Beyond the Pyramids: Travels in Egypt in 1988 – the same year that he moved to London. Two more narrative travel books followed before he published his first novel, The Dead Heart, in 1994.

His second novel, The Big Picture, was a critically acclaimed international bestseller – for which received a W.H. Smith Award in the UK. It was later filmed with great success as L’Homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie, directed by Eric Lartigau and starring Romain Duris. His subsequent nineteen novels have included such notable successes as The Pursuit of Happiness, The Woman in the Fifth (filmed by Pawel Pawlikowki with Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas), Leaving the World, The Moment, The Great Wide Open, and Flyover. He has also written a book of philosophy, a series of novels for children (illustrated by Joann Sfar), and a forthcoming book examining his relationship to the modern American condition, Abroad at Home.

His books have been translated into twenty-three languages. He is the most read American writer of modern fiction in France – where his work has sold over eight million copies and he is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.. Noted as a great narrative storyteller his fiction is both immensely readable and deeply serious in intent – exploring the anxiety of modern life, the complexities of family and homeland, and the way that we are the architects of our own cul-de-sacs. He is very much a writer who brilliantly chronicles the way we live now.

Popular Talks by Douglas Kennedy

  • Doubt and Its Uses
    Why is doubt a cornerstone of the human condition… and, as such, why is it something with which we all grapple? Could it be that how we deal with self-doubt (and the very genuine, universal fear that we will be found wanting) determines so much in how the story of...
  • Is Every Life A Novel: How To Use Your Own Narrative In A Creative Way
    We all have a story. And like all stories it is full of twists and turns: of successes and setbacks; of good luck and misfortune; of moments of exhilaration countered by those of true grief. We all (by and large) pursue happiness – but, in truth, it’s just a here-and-there...
  • The Uses of Adversity
    Who hasn’t experienced a run of bad luck, a reversal of fortune, a sense that the gods are dealing you bad cards. Or, for that matter, a calamity that has upended the very foundations of one’s life. And the question in the wake of such distress is not simply how...
  • On The Neccessities (And Pleasurs) of Discipline
    Consider Johann Sebastien Bach – who, for me, is the alpha and the omega of music. A notoriously cantankerous fellow when it came to authority – he was always arguing with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities when he was director of music at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig – he was...
  • Thinking About The Future
    Last year I wrote a novel, ‘Et Si Ainsi Que Nous Vivrons’, which is set in 2045 – when (as I hypothesize) the United States has come apart and there are two separate counties locked in an ongoing Cold War… in a world without much in the way of democracy. The...