Biography of James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke was born in Houston (Texas, USA) on December 5, 1936 and grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas-Louisiana. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute and later earned a Bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960. Over the years he worked for Sinclair Oil Company, then as a surveyor, journalist, University Professor of English, social worker for Skid Row in Los Angeles, service: employment in Louisiana, and instructor in the U.S. Job Corps. He and his wife Pearl met in graduate school and have been married for 48 years. They have four children: Jim Jr., Assistant u.s. Attorney United States; Andree, school psychologist; Pamala, producer of television commercials; and Professor of law and writer Alafair, with 4 novels published by Henry Holt. To date, he and his wife live in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana the work of James Lee Burke has been awarded the Edgar Award for Best crime novel of the year twice. Burke was one of the winners of the Breadloaf & Guggenheim Fellowship and received the prize of the NEA (National Education Association). His short stories have been published in the United States on The Atlantic Monthly, New Stories from the South, Best American Short Stories, Antioch Review, Southern trivia: her novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected by various publishers 111 times in the course of about nine years, and at the time of publication by the Louisiana State University ... was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Novels by James Lee Burke
Among his most famous novels published in Italy: • neon Rain (Baldini & Castoldi, 1998-Meridian, 2007) • the eye of the storm (Mondadori, 1997-Fanucci, 2009) • Rage in New Orleans (Baldini & Castoldi, 1997) (Hammett Prize 1995) • The Ballad of Jolie Blon (Meridian, 2005) (finalist 2003 Edgar Award) • last run for Elysian Fields (the Prime Meridian, 2005) • the howl of the wind (Fanucci , 2008) • shame (Fanucci, 2009) Dave Robicheaux, Burke's most famous: it was brought to the big screen twice: by Alec Baldwin (Murder in New Orleans, 1996, directed by Phil Joanou) and Tommy Lee Jones (the eye of the storm-In the Electric Mist, 2009, directed by Bertrand Tavernier).Recent publications
After four years of absence, in 2015 James Lee Burke back in Italian bookstores with "Creole Belle" and "light of the world", both translated and published by Unorosso publishing brands. These are two new chapters of the saga of the Louisiana Sheriff's detective Dave Robicheaux. In the first novel, "Creole Belle", the Sheriff is hospitalized at a facility in New Orleans recovery after being wounded during a shootout. Soon, because of the massive doses of morphine which is forced to take for pain, Robicheaux is absorbed completely by a dangerous track back, in which reality and ghostly memories of a troubled past mingle, rendering him unable to distinguish one from the other. So when a mysterious woman, missing for several weeks, stops at his bedside and leave an iPod with a single track, "My Creole Belle", the detective realizes that the only thing to do is get rid of the ghosts of the past. To do so, enlists the help of his former partner and PAL Clete Purcel. In "light of the world", Robicheaux and Purcel are traveling in Montana, when their lives and the lives of their loved ones is jeopardized by the appearance of a sadistic serial killer, Asa Surrette. The man convicted of numerous murders, is believed by all died after the truck which was to be transferred to another prison was involved in a tragic accident. In fact, Surrette was able to lose their tracks and now poses a serious threat especially to the detective's daughter, Alafair Robicheaux, lawyer and writer, formerly with the intention to make him confess all his crimes.Article contributed by the team of collaborators.