Tonino Benacquista
''The French, I'm glad to say, have never lost their love for 1930s style noir crime stories...'' Shots Magazine
''A terrific black comedy.'' New York Times
Tonino Benacquista, born in France in 1961 of Italian immigrants, dropped out of film studies to finance his writing career. After being, in turn, a museum night-watchman, a train guard on the Paris-Rome line and a professional parasite on the Paris cocktail circuit, he is now a highly successful author of fiction, film scripts and even graphic novels.
Benacquista won a Cesar (French Oscar) in 2006 for the script of Jacques Audiard's 'The Beat That My Heart Skipped' with Romain Duris. The film is a creative remake of 'Fingers' (1978), the first film directed by James Toback and starring Harvey Keitel. A rare instance where the remake is a giant improvement on the original.
Benacquista was introduced to English-speaking readers by Bitter Lemon Press with 'Holy Smoke', a darkly comic crime novel set in Paris and southern Italy. This critically acclaimed title was soon followed by the bestseller 'Someone Else' and 'Framed', a satirical mystery novel set in the world of Parisian art galleries.
Internet links
Benacquista visits Florida State University
www.fsu.edu/~icffs/event-writers.html
Benacquista-French bibliography
www.polars.org/article37.html
Benacquista-Gallimard crime site
www.gallimard.fr/foliopolicier/phares/benacquista.
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