Jean-Patrick Manchette Photo

Jean-Patrick Manchette

Writing

1.3 Popularity Dec 19, 1942 (52 years old) Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Jean-Patrick Manchette (19 December 1942, Marseille – 3 June 1995, Paris) was a French crime novelist credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. He wrote ten short novels in the seventies and early eighties, and is widely recognized as the foremost French crime fiction author of that ...

Biography

Jean-Patrick Manchette (19 December 1942, Marseille – 3 June 1995, Paris) was a French crime novelist credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. He wrote ten short novels in the seventies and early eighties, and is widely recognized as the foremost French crime fiction author of that period. His stories are violent explorations of the human condition and French society. Manchette was politically to the left and his writing reflects this through his analysis of social positions and culture.

Eight of his eleven novels have been translated into English. Two were published by San Francisco publisher City Lights Books—3 To Kill (from the French Le petit bleu de la côte ouest) and The Prone Gunman (from the French La Position du tireur couché). Five other novels, Fatale, The Mad and the Bad (from the French O dingos, O chateaux!), Ivory Pearl (from the French La Princesse du Sang), Nada, and No Room at the Morgue were released by New York Review Books Classics in 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively. In 2009, Fantagraphics Books released an English-language version of French cartoonist Jacques Tardi's adaptation of Le petit bleu de la côte ouest, under the new English title West Coast Blues. Fantagraphics released a second Tardi adaptation, of "La Position du tireur couché" (under the title "Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot" ) in 2011, and a third one, of "Ô Dingos! Ô Châteaux!" (under the title "Run Like Crazy Run Like Hell") in 2015. Manchette was a fan of comics, and his praised translation of Alan Moore's Watchmen into French remains in print.

Born December 19, 1942, in Marseille, where the war had temporarily led his parents, Jean-Patrick Manchette spent most of his early years in Malakoff, in Paris's southern suburbs. Growing up in a relatively modest family (his father started out as a factory worker, later to become an electronics sales executive), he was an excellent pupil and from an early age showed keen interest in writing. During his childhood and adolescence, he wrote hundreds of pages of pastiches of war memoirs and science fiction novels, gradually turning to attempts at "serious" fiction.

A compulsive reader, passionate lover of American film and jazz (he played the tenor and alto saxophone), he also developed a lifelong interest in chess and other strategy games. While his parents envisioned a teaching career for him, to their great dismay he dropped out of the ENS without graduating, and decided to try and earn a living writing. He went to England to teach French for one semester in a college for the blind at Worcester, then returned to France.

A left-wing activist during the War of Algeria in the early 1960s, he was at that time very much influenced by the writings of the Situationist International. ...

Source: Article "Jean-Patrick Manchette" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Filmography 20

2017
2015
The Gunman Movie

Novel

1984
Polar Movie

Novel

1983
Cover Up Movie

Writer

1982
Legitimate Violence Movie

Screenplay

1982
Le Choc Movie

Novel

1982
Time Masters Movie

Dialogue

1981
For a Cop's Hide Movie

Novel

1980
1976
The Probability Factor Movie

Screenplay

1975
1975
Act of Aggression Movie

Writer

1975
Apostrophes TV

as Self

1974
The Nada Gang Movie

Novel

1974
The Nada Gang Movie

Screenplay

1970
Bartleby Movie

as A servile employee

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Fatale Movie

Novel

1968
Le Socrate Movie

Dialogue

1967
The Slave Movie

Writer

1967
Love + Fear = Torment Movie

Adaptation

Photos 1

Jean-Patrick Manchette Photo

Personal Details

Known For Writing
Gender Male
Birthday December 19, 1942 (52 years old)
Died June 03, 1995
Place of Birth Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Also Known As Patrick Manchette
Years Active 1967 - 2017
Popularity 1.3
Career Stats
20 Total Credits
1 Movie Roles
1 TV Roles
1 Photos