Jake Lamar

Jake Lamar (born in 1961 in The Bronx, New York City) is an African-American writer, novelist, playwright, and cultural critic^[1] living in Paris.^[1]

Jake Lamar
Jake Lamar signing at the 7th Interpol'Art Festival in Reims , in October 2012.
Born	1961 (age 63–64) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University

After graduating from Harvard University, Lamar spent six years writing for Time magazine.^[2] He has lived in Paris since 1993^[3] and teaches creative writing at Sciences Po.^[4] At age 30, he published a memoir, Bourgeois Blues, in which he evoked his relationship with his father. With it, he won the Lyndhurst Prize.^[4] In 1993, he moved to Paris in the 18th arrondissement where he still resides.

After a near fatal heart problem in 2015, Lamar wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times on the quality of the socialist system of health care in France.^[5] His most recent work, Viper's Dream (No Exit Press, 2023) is a crime novel set in the jazz world of Harlem between the years 1936 and 1961.^[6] A version of Viper's Dream was broadcast (in French) as a 10-episode radio play in 2019. That production included many jazz tracks of the period. Viper's Dream was published in French as a novel by Rivages/Noir in 2021. Viper's Dream was published in the US by Crooked Lane Books in 2023.

In July 2024, Viper's Dream received the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger Award.^[7] In December 2024, Das schwarze Chamäleon, the German translation of his novel If 6 Were 9, won the German Crime Fiction Award in the international category.

Fiction in English

• Bourgeois Blues (Summit Books 1991)^[4]
• The Last Integrationist (Crown 1996)^[4]
• Close to the Bone (Crown 1999)
• If 6 were 9 (Crown 2001)
• Rendezvous Eighteenth (Minotaur 2003)
• Ghosts of Saint-Michel (Minotaur 2006)
• Viper's Dream (No Exit Press 2023)

Fiction in French

• Le caméléon noir (Rivages/Noir 2003)
• Nous avions un rêve (Rivages/Noir 2005)
• New York Transfer (Biro 2007)
• Rendez-vous dans le 18ème (Rivages/Thriller 2007)
• Les Fantômes de Saint-Michel (Rivages/Thriller 2009)
• Confessions d'un fils modèle (Payot/Rivages 2009)
• Postérité (Rivages 2014)
• Viper's Dream (Rivages/Noir 2021)

Plays

• Brothers in Exile
• Brothers in Exile (radio play)
• Viper's Dream (radio play)

Awards

• Deutscher Krimipreis, 2024 (for his novel If 6 were 9)
• Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger Award, 2024 (for his novel Viper's Dream)
• Lyndhurst Prize
• Centre National du Livre grant (for his novel Postérité)
• France's Grand Prize for best foreign thriller (for his novel The Last Integrationist)
• Beaumarchais fellowship (for his play Brothers in Exile)