Wednesday, May 6, 2009

About David Benioff


You may not have heard of David Benioff, but you’ve probably seen, or at least heard of one of his movies: Troy, The Kite Runner or X-Men Origins: Wolverine. David Benioff is probably best known for his career as a screenwriter, although he has written several critically acclaimed books, novels The 25th Hour and City of Thieves and a collection of short stories, When the Nines Roll Over. Benioff was born in New York City in 1970 and attended Dartmouth College, the University of California Irvine and Trinity College in Dublin. He worked as a high school teacher, a bouncer and a DJ before his writing career took off with the publication of The 25th Hour.

David Benioff spent years working on his latest novel, City Of Thieves. Contrary to what many people think, the book is not a memoir, even though the main character, Lev, is telling the story to his grandson, David, who happens to be a writer. Benioff says that the book is “99.99% fiction” and encourages readers to “take everything between the two covers with a big dose of salt.” That being said, before writing the book, he traveled to St. Petersburg and did extensive research there, visiting many of the sites that are featured in the book, to ensure that the story was historically accurate.

Benioff lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Amanda Peet, and their daughter. To learn more about him and his work, check out this interview.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi, I'm about 1/2 way through the book. Mostly I'm enjoying it, but it is grim at times. I'm looking forward to discussing it more when I'm finished.