Joseph Kanon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1946 (age 75–76) Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University, Trinity College |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Known for | Author of spy novels |
| Spouse | Robin Straus |
Joseph Kanon (born 1946) is an American author, best known for thriller and spy novels set in the period immediately after World War II. [1]
In 1946, Kanon was born in Pennsylvania, U.S.
Kanon studied at Harvard University, and at Trinity College in Cambridge. As an undergraduate, he published his first stories in The Atlantic Monthly .
Kanon was the editor in chief, CEO, and president of the publishing houses Houghton Mifflin and E. P. Dutton in New York.
Kanon began his writing career in 1995. His first novel, Los Alamos (1997), became a bestseller and received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1998. Further novels followed, including The Prodigal Spy, The Good German and Alibi. His stories are set in the period between World War II and 1950, and he has often used a real event, such as the Potsdam Conference or the Manhattan Project, as the background for a murder case. [1] His novels are critically acclaimed, and reviewers from the Boston Globe and The New York Times have compared his work with the novels of Graham Greene and John le Carré. [2] A film based on The Good German was produced in 2006, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. Istanbul Passage is a spy thriller set in that city in 1945. Leaving Berlin (2015) concerns an American expatriate who becomes an unwilling double agent of the American and East German intelligence services during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949. [3]
Kanon is married to Robin Straus, a literary agent. They reside in New York City, New York.
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the hydrogen bomb. After his conviction in 1950, he served nine years in prison in the United Kingdom, then migrated to East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels.
Theodore Alvin Hall was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on United States efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II, gave a detailed description of the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, and of several processes for purifying plutonium, to Soviet intelligence. His brother, Edward N. Hall, was a rocket scientist who led the US Air Force's program to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, personally designing the Minuteman missile and convincing the Pentagon and President Eisenhower to adopt it as a key part of the nation's strategic nuclear triad.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
ODESSA is an American codename coined in 1946 to cover Nazi underground escape plans at the end of World War II by a group of SS officers with the aim of facilitating secret escape routes, and any directly ensuing arrangements. The idea has been widely circulated in fictional spy novels and movies, including Frederick Forsyth's best-selling thriller The Odessa File (1972). The routes are also called ratlines. Known goals included allowing the SS members to escape to Argentina or the Middle East under false passports.
Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Written by Brian Moore, the film is set in the Cold War. It is about an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany.
Niven Busch was an American novelist and screenwriter of movies such as the acclaimed The Postman Always Rings Twice. His novels included Duel in the Sun (1944) and California Street (1959). He was married to actress Teresa Wright for ten years beginning in 1942.
Destination Unknown is a work of spy fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1954 and in US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1955 under the title of So Many Steps to Death. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6) and the US edition at $2.75.
Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold War. Exactly what was given, and whether everyone on the list gave it, are still matters of some scholarly dispute. In some cases, some of the arrested suspects or government witnesses had given strong testimonies or confessions which they recanted later or said were fabricated. Their work constitutes the most publicly well-known and well-documented case of nuclear espionage in the history of nuclear weapons. At the same time, numerous nuclear scientists wanted to share the information with the world scientific community, but this proposal was firmly quashed by the United States government.
Background to Danger is a 1943 World War II spy film starring George Raft and featuring Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre.
Olen Steinhauer is an American writer of spy fiction novels, including The Tourist, part of the Milo Weaver series, and the Yalta Boulevard Sequence. Steinhauer also created the TV series Berlin Station, focused on a fictional Central Intelligence Agency branch operating in Berlin, which began airing in 2016.
The Innocent is a 1990 novel by British writer Ian McEwan. It received positive reviews from book critics and is often considered one of his best novels.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a 1965 British Cold War spy film based on the 1963 novel of the same name by John le Carré. The film stars Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner. It was directed by Martin Ritt, and the screenplay was written by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper.
Stella Ingrid Goldschlag, also known as Stella Kübler-Isaacksohn and Stella Kübler was a German Jewish woman who collaborated with the Gestapo during World War II, operating around Berlin exposing and denouncing Berlin's underground Jews.
Martin Kosleck was a German film actor. Like many other German actors, he fled when the Nazis came to power. Inspired by his deep hatred of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Kosleck made a career in Hollywood playing villainous Nazis in films. While in the United States, he appeared in more than 80 films and television shows in a 46-year span. His icy demeanor and piercing stare on screen made him a popular choice to play Nazi villains. He portrayed Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister, five times, and also appeared as an SS trooper and a concentration camp officer.
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. Tension is created by delaying what the audience sees as inevitable, and is built through situations that are menacing or where escape seems impossible.
Transit is a novel by German writer Anna Seghers, set in Vichy Marseilles after France fell to Nazi Germany. Written in German, it was published in English in 1944, and has also been translated into other languages.
Bridge of Spies is a 2015 historical drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, and starring Tom Hanks in the lead role, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, and Alan Alda. Set during the Cold War, the film tells the story of lawyer James B. Donovan, who is entrusted with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers—a U.S. Air Force convicted pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960—in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet KGB spy held by the United States, whom Donovan represented at trial. The name of the film refers to the Glienicke Bridge, which connects Potsdam with Berlin, where the prisoner exchange took place. The film was an international co-production of the United States and Germany.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
