Daniel Pennack: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The world famous French writer Daniel Pennac was born in 1944. His birthplace is Casablanca (Morocco). Daniel's father was a military engineer, so the family had to travel a lot and live in more than one military garrison.

For most of his school years, the future writer did not shine with academic performance. There was even a joke in the family that Daniel Pennack would spend at least a year memorizing the letter "a". The father often repeated that at about twenty-six years old, the son would master the alphabet perfectly. Only towards the end of his studies did he manage to recover. A wood carver, a taxi driver, an illustrator - he mastered these professions after leaving the school walls. After receiving a higher pedagogical education, Daniel Pennak began to teach. His 25+ year career has been teaching in a school for children with developmental delays.

The beginning of a literary career

The beginning of his literary career was by no means cloudless: the editors did not seek to accept the works of the author. Until one of the well-known editors returned the work with a reasoned analysis and parting words in the further improvement of a clear literary gift. For his first essay publication, Daniel Pennack chosea pseudonym so as not to have a negative impact on the career of a military father.

World fame came to the writer after the publication of a series of detective novels "The Saga of Malossen", he is also famous as the author of children's books. Directors draw inspiration from his works, and his essay en titled “Like a Novel” (Daniel Pennack repeats quotes from it often) fundamentally changed the approaches of educators to introduce children to reading and awaken their love for books. By the way, he calls himself a "passionate reader." The writer's third novel, The Little Prose Merchant, managed to win first place both in France and throughout Western Europe in terms of "readability" for two years.

Daniel Pennack: Books for Children

The author began working on his "children's" stories in 1978-1980. It was a period of residence in Brazil. Readers are well acquainted with his stories such as "The Dog the Dog", written in 1982, "The Eye of the Wolf" (the year of creation - 1984), "The Adventures of Kamo" (written in 1992).

These are books on the pages of which you can learn what true friendship is, see how French teenagers live, like any other teenagers in the world, who need understanding, love and support from adults and parents.

The works of D. Pennak are distinguished by liveliness and spontaneity, a slightly noticeable sadness and a very clear call to life. They do not repel with hopelessness and anguish, do not inflict wounds on children's hearts, but on the contrary endow them with notes of joy.

Literary awards

The works of Daniel Pennack can be read in twenty-six languages of the world, their best assessment is the literary awards that mark the work of the writer in various countries. Among them: the International Grinzane-Cavour Prize (2002), the Renaudo Literary Prize (2007). The Cesar Award was awarded in March 2013 to a cartoon based on a script by D. Pennack.