Littell, Jonathan 1967-

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Littell, Jonathan 1967-

PERSONAL:

Born 1967, in New York, NY; son of Robert Littell (a writer). Education: Attended Yale University.

CAREER:

Writer and human services worker. Previously worked for Action against Hunger (French-based relief agency), relief worker.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Goncourt Prize and Academie Francaise Prize, 2006, for Les Bienveillantes: Roman.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Bad Voltage, Roc (New York, NY), 1989.

Les Bienveillantes: Roman (title means "The Well Wishers" or "The Kindly Ones"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Nearly two decades passed between Jonathan Littell's first novel, a little-known science fiction story titled Bad Voltage, and his extremely successful Les Bienveillantes: Roman. A best-selling novel in France in 2006, Les Bienveillantes ("The Well Wishers" or "The Kindly Ones") has also garnered the novelist prestigious literary prizes and has since undergone a bidding war by several international publishing houses.

Although Littell is an American, he wrote Les Bienveillantes in French to tell the story of a retired German SS Colonel and the massacre of Jews during World War II. The colonel, Max Aue, is dying and narrates the tale as he reflects on his time with a German death squad. During the war, Aue takes part in the invasion of the Soviet Union and eventually works at the Majdanek and Auschwitz death camps, where he is responsible for the orderly logistics of murdering as many Jews as possible. "The narrator constantly equivocates: all, he reasons, are subject to Necessity, and even the most brutal may be family-loving husbands and sons," wrote Anita Brookner in the Spectator. "Herein lies the brilliance of the novel, the way in which it delineates the breakdown of judgment, the almost persuasive justifications."

Although not all reviewers praised Les Bienveillantes with equal enthusiasm, the novel received generally good reviews. "Mr Littell's research is meticulous," wrote a contributor to the Economist. "Aue mixes with the leading historical figures of the time, and the intricacies of Nazi bureaucracy are depressingly real." Other reviewers noted Littell's ability to create a memorable character in Aue. For example, Steven Englund wrote in Foreign Policy: "Thanks to the gifts of his young creator, Maximilian Aue lives: He belabors his points, bedazzles his superiors, bedevils his adversaries, and in his untoward but moving moments of innocence and naivete (false and real), he beguiles his readers even as he numbs and repels them. But withal he lives. That is Littell's accomplishment; it is a masterpiece."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Economist, November 4, 2006, review of Les Bienveillantes: Roman, p. 94.

Foreign Policy, March, 2007, Steven Englund, review of Les Bienveillantes, p. 76.

History Today, February, 2007, Tobias Grey, review of Les Bienveillantes, p. 5.

M2 Best Books, October 27, 2006, "Chatto & Windus to Publish Les Bienveillantes"; November 7, 2006, "Winner of Goncourt Literary Prize Announced."

New Statesman, December 11, 2006, Andrew Hussey, review of Les Bienveillantes, p. 55.

New York Times, April 4, 2004, Michelle York, "Novelist Helps a Chechen Hit the Books in America," p. A39; November 18, 2006, Alan Riding, "After Foreigners Take Four Top Book Awards, Is French Literature Burning?," p. B7.

Publishers Weekly, October 9, 2006, Sara Nelson, "Frankfurt Rag," briefly discusses author's book sale, p. 5.

Spectator, December 2, 2006, Anita Brookner, "Prize-Winning Novels from France,"

Times Literary Supplement, November 17, 2006, Justin Beplate, review of Les Bienveillantes, p. 21.

Vietnam News Briefs, February, 2007, "Culture & Society: 2006 Goncourt Literacy Prize Winner to Be Published in Vietnam."