Michael Finkel (born 1969) is a journalist and memoirist, who has written the books True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa (2005), The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (2017), and The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession (2023) about Stéphane Breitwieser.
Finkel was a writer for The New York Times until 2002, when he was discovered to have created a composite protagonist for a story on the Arab slave trade within Africa. [1] The story published in 2001, titled "Is Youssouf Malé A Slave?" purported to profile an adolescent West African boy, Youssouf Malé, who had sold himself into slavery on a cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast. The story as published included photographs, including one described as being that of Malé. However, after publication, an official from Save the Children contacted Finkel to say that the boy pictured was not Malé. Upon questioning by his editors, Finkel admitted that the boy profiled in the article was a composite of several boys he had interviewed, including one named Youssouf Malé. [2] Finkel was subsequently fired. [3]
Initially, Finkel had pitched a story about child slavery The New York Times, but his reporting did not uncover proof of enslavement. Instead, he encountered teenagers working for meager wages in difficult conditions, [4] leading him to create the composite character to fit the narrative he had proposed.
After his dismissal from The New York Times, Finkel learned that Christian Longo, an Oregon man who had murdered his wife and three children in December 2001, had used "Michael Finkel" as an alias during his several weeks as a fugitive. After Longo's capture the next month, Finkel communicated with him. Finkel says that, before the trial, Longo had hoped the journalist would bring out "the real story" to help him win acquittal; after his conviction, Longo gave Finkel interviews admitting his guilt. Finkel wrote a memoir about their relationship, True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa (2005). [5]
Finkel is also the author of The Stranger in the Woods which tells the story of Christopher Thomas Knight, a hermit who lived alone in woods in the North Pond area of Maine for 27 years. [6]
True Story was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime (2006). [7] A film adaptation was released in April 2015, starring Jonah Hill as Finkel and James Franco as Longo.
In 2008, Finkel and photographer John Stanmeyer won the National Magazine Award for photojournalism [8] for "Bedlam in the Blood: Malaria", [9] published in National Geographic (July 2007). [10]
The Art Thief was named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Lit Hub. [11]
William Clark Styron Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.
Carlos Pinto is a popular Chilean journalist, writer and television presenter. In 1984, he and Santiago Pavlovic began an investigative program called Informe Especial which airs in TVN. He is the father of the football player Sebastián Pinto. It was the driver of the reality The game of fear of TVN, which was taken off the air shortly after due to poor ratings.
Mea culpa is a phrase originating from Latin that means my fault or my mistake and is an acknowledgment of having done wrong. The expression is used also as an admission of having made a mistake that should have been avoided and, in a religious context, may be accompanied by symbolically beating the breast when uttering the words.
Stéphane Breitwieser is a French art thief and author, notorious for his art thefts between 1995 and 2001. He admitted to stealing 239 artworks and other exhibits from 172 museums while travelling around Europe and working as a waiter, an average of one theft every 15 days. The Guardian called him "arguably the world's most consistent art thief". He has also been called "one of the most prolific and successful art thieves who have ever lived", and "one of the greatest art thieves of all time". His thefts resulted in the destruction of many works of art, destroyed by his family to conceal evidence of his crimes.
John Edgar Wideman is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus on the African-American experience.
Val Lewton was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a painter and exhibition designer.
Michael Korda is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.
The Confiteor is one of the prayers that can be said during the Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. It is also said in the Lutheran Church at the beginning of the Divine Service, and by some Anglo-Catholic Anglicans before Mass.
Kate Blewett is a documentary film-maker in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her documentaries on human rights abuses, such as The Dying Rooms and Bulgaria's Abandoned Children.
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British Technicolor historical fantasy film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan, with additional contributions by William Cameron Menzies and Korda brothers Vincent and Zoltán. The film stars Indian-born teen actor Sabu, Conrad Veidt, John Justin, and June Duprez. It was released in the US and the UK by United Artists.
David Hirshey is an American book editor and sportswriter. The senior vice president and executive editor of HarperCollins from 1998-2016, he was previously an editor for Esquire and the New Yorker. At Esquire, he worked with writers including Martin Amis, Richard Ben Cramer, Frederick Exley, Richard Ford, David Halberstam. Norman Mailer and Tom Robbins.
Felice Picano is an American writer, publisher, and critic who has encouraged the development of gay literature in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.
Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.
Franz Lidz is an American writer, journalist and pro basketball executive.
David Stout was a journalist and author of mystery novels, two of which have been turned into TV movies, and of non-fiction about violent crime. For his first novel, Carolina Skeletons, he won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is a 2012 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. The film details the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States by four deaf men. It features the voices of actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, who provide the voices of the deaf interviewees.
True Story is a 2015 American mystery thriller film that was directed by Rupert Goold in his directorial debut. It is based on a screenplay by Goold and David Kajganich. Based on the memoir of the same name by Michael Finkel, it stars Jonah Hill, James Franco and Felicity Jones, with Gretchen Mol, Betty Gilpin and John Sharian in supporting roles.
Christian Michael Longo is a convicted murderer who killed his wife and three children in Oregon in December 2001.
Christopher Thomas Knight, also known as the North Pond Hermit, is an American former recluse and burglar who claimed to have lived without human contact for 27 years between 1986 and 2013 in the North Pond area of Maine's Belgrade Lakes.
Jori Finkel is an American writer and editor who specializes in contemporary art. She is best known for analyzing the inner workings of the art market and for chronicling the Los Angeles art scene during its expansion at the beginning of the 21st century.