Katherine Pancol - Biography

Biography

Katherine Pancol moved from Casablanca to France when she was five. She studied literature and initially became a French and Latin teacher before turning to journalism. While working for Paris-Match and Cosmopolitan, she was noticed by an intuitive publisher who encouraged her to begin writing fiction. Following the success of her first novel Moi D'abord (Me First) in 1979, Pancol moved to New York City where she spent the next decade pursuing creative writing and screenwriting classes at Columbia University while producing three more novels La Barbare in 1981, Scarlett, si possible and Les hommes cruels ne courent pas les rues.

Influenced by the American way of life, her style became more action-packed and fast-paced.

Pancol is admired for her insights into human psychology, particularly women, and her sense of detail is often shaded with wry humor. Her works tend to have an uplifting theme while entertaining, and have been immensely successful commercially. One of her goals is to inspire women to dare to be themselves while keeping a positive relationship with life itself.

Her novel The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (published in 2006) was a huge success in France, where it sold more than one million copies and received the "Prix de Maison de la Presse, 2006" for the largest distribution in France. Katherine Pancol was awarded "Best author 2007" by Gorodets Publishing (Moscow). The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles was the 6th best-selling book in France in 2008 (Le Figaro Littéraire). The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles was translated into English, Russian, Chinese, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, Latvian and Norwegian.

Katherine Pancol is divorced and has two grown children. She lives in Paris, France where she is currently writing the third sequel to The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles.

Pancol updates her blog weekly on her web-site (http://www.katherine-pancol.com).