The “Charlie Parker” series and its genesis: Supernatural, crime, politics

The internationally successful Irish author John Connolly is coming to Athens for a wide-ranging conversation with Elias Maglinis, author and editor-in-chief of the “Kathimerini” newspaper. They will be discussing how his series of Charlie Parker novels came about, the unique way in which John Connolly combines the metaphysical with noir, and the writing process itself.

The author of more than 20 books and winner of a host of literary awards (Shamus, Anthony, CWA Dagger and others), John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. He worked as a barman, a government official and a journalist at “The Irish Times” before publishing his first book, “Every dead thing”, in 1999, a crime novel in which he introduced Charlie Parker, the ex-cop hunting the man who murdered his wife and daughter.

The book became a best-seller in record time and went on to win the American Shamus prize for the best first Private Investigator novel—the first time the prize had been awarded to a non-American writer.

Connolly continued his impressive run with “Dark hollow”, “The killing kind”, “The white road”, “The reflecting eye”, “The black angel”, “The unquiet”, “The reapers” and “The lovers”, every one of which featured on the best-seller lists of the “Sunday Times”, the “Irish Times” and the “New York Times”. Connolly's novels have been published in 28 languages and earned him an undisputed place among the best best crime fiction writers of the younger generation writers of crime fiction.

He is often called the “Dubliner who writes like an American” because of the enviable naturalness and authenticity he brings to the American settings in which his plots unfold. A past master at staging mayhem and horror and an outstanding stylist, he stands out from his peers thanks to the unique way in which he combines noir with the metaphysical and the nail-biting plots of an adventure story with descents into the darkest depths of the human soul.