A short life of the author
Pierre Lemaitre (b. 1951) was born on 19 April 1951 in Paris, France. He studied literature and worked as a teacher of literary theory before turning to fiction in his fifties.
Life and Career
The Commandant Verhoeven trilogy — Irène (2006), Alex (2011), and Camille (2012) — features Commandant Camille Verhoeven, a diminutive Parisian police detective. Alex — about a young woman kidnapped and imprisoned in a cage — was a bestseller across Europe, notable for its structural audacity: the reader’s understanding of who is victim and who is perpetrator shifts repeatedly.
Au revoir là-haut (2013, The Great Swindle) — about Albert Maillard and Édouard Péricourt, two French soldiers who survive World War I and create an enormous fraud involving war memorials for the dead — won the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize. It was adapted into a 2017 film directed by Albert Dupontel.
Couleurs de l’incendie (2018, All Human Wisdom) and Miroir de nos peines (2020) — set in the 1920s-1930s and 1940 respectively — completed a trilogy about France between the wars.
Major Works and Themes
Lemaitre is unusual in French letters for his ability to work at the highest literary level in both crime fiction and historical fiction. The Verhoeven novels are structurally ingenious — Alex in particular uses a three-act structure in which the reader’s sympathies and assumptions are upended twice, a technique that exploits the conventions of the serial-killer thriller to expose the reader’s own complicity in voyeuristic violence.
Au revoir là-haut is a different kind of achievement: a novel about the aftermath of war that combines rage at the exploitation of the dead (the memorial scam at the novel’s centre) with deep tenderness for the damaged men who perpetrate it. Édouard Péricourt — a soldier whose face has been destroyed — becomes an artist who creates extraordinary memorial masks, using his disfigurement as the basis for a new aesthetic. The novel is at once a bitter satire and a celebration of human ingenuity.
Lemaitre came to fiction late — his first novel was published when he was in his mid-fifties — and his career is a reminder that literary greatness is not the exclusive property of the young.
Critical Reception and Legacy
The Prix Goncourt for Au revoir là-haut was a recognition not just of the novel but of Lemaitre’s unusual position: a crime writer who had crossed over to literary fiction without abandoning the plotting skills that made his crime novels exceptional. The film adaptation (2017) was a commercial and critical success in France.
In the English-speaking world, Lemaitre has been well-served by his translators (Frank Wynne for the crime novels, Sam Taylor for the historical fiction), and his reputation is growing.
Key Works
- Irène (2006) — Verhoeven trilogy
- Alex (2011) — CWA International Dagger
- Camille (2012)
- Au revoir là-haut (2013) — Prix Goncourt
- Couleurs de l’incendie (2018)
- Miroir de nos peines (2020)
Collecting Lemaitre
French first editions (Albin Michel, Paris) are the true firsts. Au revoir là-haut (2013) brings $10–$30 for fine copies. Post-Goncourt printings are common; true first printings before the prize announcement are more scarce.
English translations — published by MacLehose Press (UK) and Mulholland Books (US) — bring $10–$25. Lemaitre signs at French literary events and Salon du Livre. Signed French editions are more available than signed English editions.