(profile feature)

Joel Dicker is a modern Swiss writer, who at the age of 36 became one of the most recognizable authors in the world.

Early life

Dicker went to Geneva schools. At the age of 10, together with his friend, Joel became the founder of the children’s drawing and nature journal ‘La Gazette des Animaux,’ created for the 50th anniversary of the National Museum of Natural History. ‘La Gazette des Animaux’ had been published for seven years. Dicker received the Cunéo Prize for nature conservation and was named the youngest editor-in-chief of the regional daily newspaper ‘Tribune de Genève’ in Switzerland. Dicker graduated from the College of Madame de Stahl in Geneva, studied acting for a year at the Florentine Courses in Paris, and then, in 2010, graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva with a master’s degree.

Career steps

In 2005, Dicker published the first short story, ‘The Tiger,’ which won the International Young Authors Award. It was published in the collection work of winners of the competition by L’Hèbe.

In January 2012, Dicker’s novel ‘The Last Days of Our Fathers’ was published. It is about the activities of the Office of Special Operations during World War II, known as Churchill’s ‘Secret Army.’ Dicker finished the manuscript in 2009, but then no editor wanted to publish the book. When it was finally published by ‘Éditions de Fallois’ publishing house, it did not get much attention from readers, no more than a few hundred copies of the novel were sold.

At the age of 27, Joel Dicker achieved international recognition when he wrote ‘The Truth about the of Harry Quebert affair.’ In 2013, the novel became the sales leader in almost all European countries, its copywrite was sold to 32 countries and won the Grand Prix of the French Academy and the Goncourt Prize of lyceum students. It is a story about a young writer who just wrote his first bestseller but already suffers from writers block and decides to take a sabbatical and visit his old friend and also well-known author Harry Quebert to find some inspiration. After returning to his normal life the whole America and Marcus himself discover a dreadful truth about Harrys past. The police found a dead body in his backyard. Is Harry Quebert, the sweetheart writer of America, a cold blooded murderer? Marcus decides to figure it out by himself and is ready to tell you the truth about the Harry Quebert. It was adapted to screen in 2018 starring Patrick Dempsey and Ben Schnetzer.

After that Joel wrote 3 more novels: ‘The Baltimore book,’ ‘The disappearance of Stefanie Meiler’ and’ ‘The mystery of the room 622.’

I strongly recommend you reading ‘The truth about the Harry Quebert affair’ and ‘The disappearance of Stefanie Meiler.’ Those books will keep you on the edge of the seat till the very end.

In Ukraine, Joel Dicker`s books are published by ‘Stary Lev’ publishing house. They became very popular among Ukrainian readers.

Personal life

Joel now lives in Geneva with his wife and child. He loves airplanes and all related stuff, can play the guitar and drums and takes boxing classes.