JAKE LAMAR was born in 1961 and grew up in the Bronx, New York. After graduating from Harvard University, he spent six years writing for Time magazine. He has lived in Paris since 1993 and teaches creative writing at one of France's top universities, Sciences Po. He is the author of a memoir, seven novels, numerous essays, reviews and short stories, and a play. His most recent work, Viper's Dream, is both a crime novel and an audio drama, set in the jazz world of Harlem between 1936 and 1961.
He is a recipient of the Lyndhurst Prize (for his first book, Bourgeois Blues), a prestigious Centre National du Livre grant (for his novel Postérité), France’s Grand Prize for best foreign thriller (for his novel The Last Integrationist), and a Beaumarchais fellowship for his play Brothers in Exile. He is currently working on a memoir about his life in Paris.
Listen to the French radio adaptation of Brothers in Exile which last aired on France Culture on February 2022.
Brothers in Exile is a play about the complex relationship between Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes in Paris in the 1950s.
Books in English
Livres en français
Agenda
19 - 20 November 2022
Roman Noir Book Fair
Lamballe, France
7 - 9 October 2022
Book Fair
Gradignan, France
22 - 25 September 2022
Vincennes, Paris
4 - 6 June 2022
International Book Festival
Saint-Malo, France
20 - 21 Mai 2022
Roman Noir Festival
FNAC at la Défense, Paris
13 - 15 Mai 2022
Festival Polar and Justice
Carbonne, France
7 - 8 Mai 2022
Book Fair in Châteauroux, France
20 April 2022 at 6 pm
Cinéma l'Arlequin, Paris
Sceening of the documentary followed by a debate
1 - 3 April 2022
International Book Festival in Lyon
24 - 27 February 2022
Book Festival in Nantes
6 February 2022 at 8 pm
Brothers in Exile, Frères d'exil
Rebroadcast on France Culture
1 February 2022
Conversation with Pap Ndiaye
27 - 28 November 2021
Festival of Crime Fiction
Vienne, France
8 - 10 October 2021
Festival of Crime Fiction
Toulouse, France
30 September 2021 at 7pm
Discussion and Book Signing
Paris, France
17 - 19 September 2021
Book fair in Besançon, France
10 - 12 September 2021
Book Fair in Nancy, France
Coming soon!
Viper's Dream will be published in English in April 2023
in the UK by
in the USA by
The French version of Viper's Dream
was published in France by Rivages Noir in 2021
"For too long, Jake Lamar, an American expatriate in Paris, has been one of French Crime Fiction's best kept secrets. But now, at last, thanks to No Exit Press, VIPER'S DREAM, widely considered to be Jake Lamar's masterpiece, is published in English and it does not disappoint. VIPER'S DREAM is one Long High, sweeping us through Harlem from the 1930s to the 1960s on riffs of melancholy poetry cut through with the hardboiled beats of gangsters and their streets, leaving us hooked on a pure, true Jazz Noir Classic."
David Peace